State Delays Decision on San Onofre Discharge : Environment: The Regional Water Quality Control Board may hold a joint hearing with the Coastal Commission to look at possible pollution violations.

The state Regional Water Quality Control Board on Monday tabled a decision about whether the San Onofre nuclear plant is violating its federal pollutant-discharge permit.

The status report briefing was prompted by a presentation made in October by two students from the Environmental Law Clinic of the University of San Diego School of Law, who asked the water board to respond to the findings of a 15-year, $46-million study that show the plant is violating two sections of its discharge permit, which the water board has the power to issue or revoke.

The students requested that the water board revoke San Onofre’s permit until Southern California Edison reduces the amount of sea water sucked into and spewed out of the plant--now 200 million gallons a minute--by building cooling towers.

Instead, the water board resolved only to consider holding a joint hearing on the issue with the California Coastal Commission, which created the Marine Review Committee in 1974 to compile the extensive report on the nuclear plant. The commission is weighing a variety of options to soften what the report found to be substantial environmental damage caused by the nuclear plant.

The briefing room for Monday’s meeting quickly became a battleground, however.

On one side were two Edison officials and four paid Edison consultants, as well as one of the report’s authors, who was assigned to the committee to represent the utility’s interests. On the other side were the two law students and another of the report’s authors, who represented the environmentalists’ views on the committee.

Frank L. Melone, an Edison environmental affairs spokesman, suggested that the Marine Review Committee study would not withstand the scrutiny of the scientific community at large, and he compared it to the work of two Utah scientists who recently claimed that they had discovered cold nuclear fusion--a contention that is now largely dismissed by physicists.

“The work those two individuals had done has since that time undergone peer review, and their claims just didn’t hold up,” Melone said, clearly suggesting that the MRC study could meet the same fate.

But Dr. William W. Murdoch, a biologist with the University of California at Santa Barbara and one of three authors of the study, called Melone’s assertion ludicrous.

“That’s silly. If you’re going to argue with science, you should argue by bringing in results that support your view,” he said, pointing out that the MRC study was conducted by more than 100 scientists and reviewed independently by another 100 biologists and other marine experts before the final report was released in August.

And Dr. Rimmon C. Fay, who represented environmentalists’ interests on the committee, said the report’s results are accurate.

“Enough samples were counted that you could have confidence in the results according to statistical data,” he said. “So it’s good evidence.”

Among the adverse effects the report found is a 60%, or 200-acre, reduction in the area covered by the nearby San Onofre kelp bed. The report also found that the plant’s cooling system sucks up and kills 21 tons to 57 tons of fish yearly, then discharges debris-filled water into the ocean, reducing natural light levels on the ocean floor by as much as 16%.