Report Holds San Onofre to Original Ocean Plan : Environment: Edison is seeking to relax elements of agreement to reduce effects of nuclear plant on kelp bed and fish. Coastal Commission will rule Nov. 15.

Southern California Edison should have to abide by a 1991 plan to minimize destruction of fish and kelp in the ocean along its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a California Coastal Commission report issued Friday concludes.

“A deal is a deal and all parties should be held to their commitments,” Executive Director Peter Douglas said in the staff report to commission board members.

The utility company is trying to relax some requirements of a plan forged four years ago in response to study that found the nuclear plant had reduced a nearby kelp bed by 60%. The study also found that the plant’s cooling system sucks up and kills 21 to 57 tons of fish and 4 billion eggs and larvae each year.

Edison officials say changes are needed in the plan because new studies indicate the plant hasn’t damaged the kelp bed as once believed and because costs to protect the marine life have soared from an estimated $30 million to as much as $160 million.

Edison now proposes to build a 12-acre experimental kelp reef near San Clemente rather than the 300-acre, permanent reef required by the plan, and it proposes to eliminate independent monitoring of the plan’s effectiveness.

Edison spokesman Steve Hansen said Friday that officials had not yet reviewed the report and could not comment on it, except to repeat their intent to “carry out proper mitigation.”

“We are also concerned that we don’t impose excess costs on the ratepayers,” he said.

But in the report, coastal planners questioned the company’s contentions about damage and costs and urged commissioners to reject further consideration of the proposal at a Nov. 15 public hearing.

Even if costs have soared past $100 million, commission planners argued, the plan is still cheaper than other alternatives, including construction of a cooling tower estimated at $500 million to $2 billion. Planners also argued that some of the costs claimed by Edison were excessive and could be reduced. Edison has said initial cost estimates were too low.

The report also disputed the company’s contentions about the kelp damage, which officials said is caused by the turbulence of plant water being discharged into the ocean. Planners argued that damage will vary through time, with good years and bad years.

“If as Edison claims, the effect is currently smaller (a claim that has not been demonstrated to the staff’s satisfaction), such a temporary change in effect was allowed for” when the plan went into effect, the reports says.

Douglas previously rejected the company’s bid to alter the plan.

Environmentalists have been alarmed by that effort, which threatens to reopen a decades-old debate over the effects of operating a nuclear plant beside the Pacific Ocean.

Edison officials, however, have said they can reduce costs to about $60 million and still protect marine life effectively. If Edison were forced to finance full-scale mitigation as envisioned by the commission’s staff, officials have said the utility would have to rethink the economics of operating its two San Onofre units near San Clemente.