‘Taps’ for San Onofre Nuclear Unit 1 : Energy: Workers bid farewell to the 25-year-old plant. ‘It’s the passing of an era,’ says engineer.

With heads bowed and some eyes brimming, a death of sorts was somberly marked early Monday when operators shut down California’s oldest commercial nuclear generator, Unit 1 at San Onofre.

Although the 25-year-old plant was at times temperamental and created a few minor frights, handlers who had gained a certain affection for the 450-megawatt pioneer took its demise hard.

“It’s my life’s work, it’s like losing a relative, a friend,” said Jay Iyer, who helped design Unit 1 back in 1963 and was there in the small instrument control room when the end came.

Technician Regis Weber found a personal way to express loss when he clambered up the metal stairs to the roof of the power block building and sweetly played “Taps” on his silver trumpet. Co-workers rushed to their office windows to watch, some barely concealing emotion, others cheering Weber.

“We all feel like a team, and we’re all getting dispersed,” Weber said.

Bad economics claimed Unit 1 as lagging plant efficiency and high operating costs led the state Public Utilities Commission to order owners Southern California Edison Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to pull the proverbial plug. The reactor had been designed to operate until the year 2004.

California still has four nuclear power generators, including two newer units at San Onofre and two at Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo. Although Unit 1 was not the first nuclear generator to close--voters fearing for their safety shut down troubled Rancho Seco near Sacramento in 1989--Unit 1 was a celebrity.

“It’s history, it’s the passing of an era,” said health physics engineer Sherry Folsom, noting the facility inspired loyalty. “Every one here refers to Unit 1 as ‘she.’ I don’t know why.”

Still, not everybody lamented what was clearly a sad occasion for the nuclear power industry.

Sherry Meddick, a local member of Greenpeace who has protested outside San Onofre, regarded Unit 1’s demise as a glorious day for public safety and for the truth about nuclear power.

“I can be thankful at least one of those units is shut down,” Meddick said. “I feel a little safer to live in this area.”

Meddick believes the harsh economic reality that felled Unit 1 also disproved the industry’s boast that nuclear energy is cheap and efficient. “Unit 1 represents a failure of the nuclear institution,” she said.

In the plant’s history there have been occasional scares, such as the time a small fire broke out by spontaneous combustion and another case when a power outage damaged some of its pipes. Such incidents led critics to maintain the plant was unsafe.

But for the 270 workers who have staffed Unit 1, it was not a day for partisan polemics over nuclear power, but a time for sentiment and carefully putting a giant to rest.

Unit 1 is also called Mt. Fuji because of its peaked top that’s seemingly capped with snow --actually a lavish deposit of sea gull droppings. San Onofre, located on the coast near the northern border of San Diego County, is probably more known for its domed Units 2 and 3 visible from Interstate 5.

For its first decade, Unit 1 usually functioned at better than 70% capacity, yielding 2.5% of Edison’s power and 3% for SDG&E.; (Edison owns 80% of San Onofre and SDG&E; 20%.)

In the 1980s, however, more stringent regulations caused the facility to be taken off line, sometimes for years, while extensive improvements were made. Unit 1 cost $90 million to build, but $660 million more was spent to upgrade it.

The PUC figured it would cost ratepayers $250 million to $750 million more to keep the old plant functioning.

Despite improvements, the plant’s efficiency dwindled to 50% or 60% in recent years. In an irony that caused twinges Monday, the unit went out in style by operating 377 straight trouble-free days, a 98% capacity performance.

Yet the decision had been made, and technicians and administrators--some coming in on their day off--gathered at 5:01 Monday morning as the pistol-grip handles controlling the 1,800-r.p.m. steam turbine were switched off.

An hour later, the so-called “joy stick” on the console of the control room was pulled, and--like a terminal patient--Unit 1 ceased to be.

Most of Unit 1’s 270-member staff will go to work on San Onofre’s Units 2 and 3, or find other jobs with Edison. But 70 people will remain at Unit 1, partly to oversee the removal of fuel rods, which will be deposited in a nearby, 40-foot-deep pool for spent fuel.

There will be another reminder of Unit 1, though.

Under an agreement with the PUC, the two utility companies are allowed to recover $460 million in costs and interest that was invested in the unit, but will not be earned back.

So utility customers will pay an average 75 cents a month for four years to reimburse Edison and SDG&E.;