Owners of San Onofre Plant Seek to Ease Mitigation Plan

By DEBORAH SCHOCH, DAVID HALDANE and ERIC BAILEY

Aug. 20, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Arguing that damage to kelp beds is less extensive than once feared, owners of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Monday proposed rolling back kelp-restoration efforts near the plant and at the same time detailed plans to help restore wetlands in Ventura County.

The move to alter 1991 requirements to offset damage to fish and kelp promises to reignite a decades-old controversy over the plant’s efforts on the marine environment.

“Full environmental mitigation at a reasonable cost” is how plant operator Southern California Edison described the new package submitted Monday to the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

The package looms as a nettlesome test for the commission and its staff, which have been engulfed in controversy since a Republican Party majority took power for the first time this summer.

Some consumer groups are already complaining that changing mitigation requirements will mean a windfall for shareholders, not ratepayers.

And environmentalists instantly decried one of the proposal’s biggest changes--building an experimental reef to cover 17 acres instead of a required 300. Some expressed fear that the effort would be approved because of the the new makeup of the commission.

“They are ignoring the staff and trying to ram this through before the November election because they’re not sure whether the Assembly will remain Republican and they will still have the votes that they think they have wired,” said Warner Chabot, a spokesman for the Center for Marine Conservation in San Francisco.

Michael Hertel, Edison’s manager of environmental affairs, said: “It’s not a political move. It’s based on the science we found, validated by independent people.”

Recent studies commissioned by Edison have indicated that the power plant has had less impact on offshore kelp beds than scientists originally predicted, a conclusion endorsed this summer by a three-member review panel chosen by the company and the Coastal Commission.

The current debate stems from a long-term scientific study that concluded in 1989 that the plant had caused a 60% shrinkage in a nearby kelp bed and that the plant’s cooling system was sucking up and killing 21 to 57 tons of fish and 4 billion eggs and larvae each year.

In response, the plant’s owners--Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and the cities of Anaheim and Riverside--have been operating under 1991 requirements that they build the 300-acre reef, restore wetlands and make technical changes at the plant to protect fish.

The original 1991 plan was to cost $30 million, but Edison last year began asking for changes, warning that the price tag could soar to $160 million.

The proposal submitted Monday would cost about $70 million, Hertel said.

The new wetlands restoration plan includes what Edison describes as more than 365 acres of “environmentally valuable beach, dune and presently degraded wetlands.”

While earlier plans earmarked the San Dieguito River and Lagoon area in San Diego County for restoration, the scope of the program remained a point of dispute between Edison and the commission staff. To settle that dispute, Edison is proposing adding a conservation easement to about 140 acres of Edison-owned property in the Ormond Beach area in Ventura County, and Edison would set aside $3 million for restoration.

Meanwhile, plant owners would build a 17-acre experimental reef somewhere between Dana Point and Camp Pendleton, and they are proposing changes in the way the entire San Onofre mitigation package is monitored.

Some environmentalists sharply criticized the new package and described the Edison research as flawed.

“This is very unwelcome and very disappointing,” said David Beckman, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We would strongly oppose any effort by Edison to roll back on the commitment they made.”

Foes of the nuclear plant are also contending that reduced environmental costs will only mean bigger profits for shareholders, not rebates for ratepayers.

Consumer groups said the power plant’s owners negotiated higher electrical rates based on a forecast of more than $126 million in anticipated mitigation costs, but now are changing their tune.

If the Coastal Commission agreed to lower those costs, the utilities could reap more than $50 million for their investors, they argued.

“I believe there is a windfall for shareholders in this,” said Bill Marcus, an energy analyst working with Toward Utility Rate Normalization, a San Francisco-based consumer group.

Robert Kinosian, a senior analyst with the state Public Utilities Commission’s division of ratepayer advocates, said his division proposed that any reduction in the mitigation costs be refunded to ratepayers, but Edison refused.

He said the company was playing “a shell game” by pushing for reduced environmental costs with the Coastal Commission while at the same time offering higher estimates for the mitigation during rate negotiations before the PUC.

Hertel countered that the rate issue is “a red herring” intended to yank the spotlight away from recent scientific reports that he said show less environmental damage than originally supposed.

He acknowledged that if the plant operates efficiently and mitigation costs are kept relatively low, shareholders could profit. Hertel added that if mitigation costs soared, it would come at the expense of shareholders and not ratepayers.

Hertel also discounted suggestions that the company was sculpting its message before the two different state agencies in an effort to maximize profits. “The is not our motive,” he said. “We have never hooked the two together.”

The Coastal Commission is not expected to hear the proposal before October.

Although the commission deadlocked on a similar request from Edison last year, its makeup is now considered more conservative, which some environmentalists predict could change the outcome.

Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas last year had maintained that Edison should have to abide by the 1991 requirements. He wrote then in a report to the commission: “A deal is a deal.”

The San Onofre issue resurfaced last month when Douglas was nearly fired by the commission’s new GOP majority. State Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler, who supported the firing, mentioned Douglas’ unwillingness to discuss Edison’s request for softening the 1991 requirements.

Patricia Randa, one of the new commissioners, said she would make her decision based on scientific evidence presented by both sides.

“I want science,” she said. “Send me your experts, don’t send me your one-liners.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Change in Plans?

Southern California Edison, which operates the San Onofre nuclear power plant, has proposed changes to a 1991 mitigation plan established to compensate for damage to nearby kelp beds caused by hot-water discharge from the plant.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station

Intake pipe (3,200 feet long)

Natural kelp bed

Discharge pipe

Hot Tap

Heated water discharges at various points along pipe, 8,600 feet long and 18 feet in diameter.

Current Plan

* Construct 300-acre kelp bed

* Upgrade fish-protection systems

* Restore 150 acres of wetlands

Edison Proposal

* Construct 17-acre kelp bed between Dana Point and Camp Pendleton