Hold Edison’s ‘Feet to Fire,’ Court Asked

A motion filed in federal court by an environmental group late Monday asked a federal judge to hold Southern California Edison’s “feet to the fire” over alleged damage caused by the release of cooling water from its San Onofre nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

In a request for a preliminary injunction, lawyers for the Earth Island Institute said Edison (SCE) had done nothing in the past 18 months to correct the problems, and the California Regional Water Quality Board is delaying any enforcement actions.

“This court should put SCE’s ‘feet to the fire’ and require it to disclose its specific mitigation plans, their feasibility and a realistic time line for implementing these worthy projects,” Earth Island said in the motion filed with U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster.

Brewster scheduled a hearing on the motion for April 22.

Edison officials in Rosemead could not be immediately reached for comment.

Earth Island filed a lawsuit against Edison in November under a provision of the 1972 Clean Water Act that allows citizens to take polluters to court if government agencies do not crack down on them quickly enough.

In the suit, Earth Island cited an exhaustive report on the waters around the northern San Diego County plant that was released by the marine review committee of the California Coastal Commission in 1989.

The report concluded that San Onofre was violating its national pollutant discharge elimination series permits through the discharges and recommended corrective steps be taken in the form of restoring wetlands, building an artificial reef for fish, testing new techniques to cut down on the number of fish killed in the plant’s water intake system and adjusting San Onofre’s operations during “environmentally sensitive periods,” Earth Island said.

Specifically, the marine review committee report said silt stirred up by the plant’s discharge pipe is destroying fish eggs and young fish and is damaging the surrounding kelp beds.

Edison has asked Brewster to postpone action on the suit until the Regional Water Quality Board holds hearings and acts on the marine review committee report, a process Earth Island said was a delaying tactic.

“SCE’s proposed schedule of events is a classic example of too little, too late,” Earth Island said. “The Water (Quality) Board should have taken immediate action in 1989 when it was appraised of the NPDES (national pollutant discharge elimination series) violations through the (marine review committee) report.”