Coast Panel Delays Edison Plant Ruling

Beset by factions warring over kelp and wetlands, the California Coastal Commission this week postponed a final decision whether to relax requirements intended to offset damage to the marine environment near the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Commissioners voted 7 to 3 early Wednesday to delay action until next month on the hotly debated proposal from plant operator Southern California Edison that would cancel a planned 300-acre artificial kelp reef off the coast of San Clemente and make changes in required wetlands restoration and monitoring.

The proposal has unleashed a storm of controversy, with environmentalists accusing Edison of going back on its word.

Commissioners heard more than eight hours of testimony before adjourning after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, promising to resume at a November meeting in San Diego.

Testimony ranged from technical to bombastic.

Edison argued that damage to kelp is much less extensive than earlier feared, and that Edison should be allowed to build only an artificial reef of only 16.8 acres rather than the 300 initially envisioned or the 122 now sought by the commission staff.

Environmentalists claimed Edison is distorting numbers to hide what they claim is continuing damage to kelp and fish.

And some San Diego residents worried that Edison’s plan to divide funds between two wetlands projects--at San Dieguito Lagoon in San Diego County and Ormond Beach in Ventura County--would dilute the original project slated for San Dieguito.

The kelp controversy has rekindled public interest in how the twin reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station may be altering the ocean.

A major 14-year scientific study determined in 1989 that the plant’s cooling system was damaging a nearby kelp bed and sucking up and killing 21 to 57 tons of fish and 4 billion eggs and larvae annually.

So a 1991 mitigation plan, approved by the commission with Edison’s support, required plant owners to reduce damage with steps such as the 300-acre artificial reef and restoration of a coastal wetlands--steps that Edison is now attempting to modify.

In hopes of resolving their differences, the staff and Edison earlier this year relied on a panel of three scientists to review Edison’s kelp data. That panel concluded that damage to the kelp is not as great as formerly thought.

Two of the three scientists have questioned Edison’s interpretation of their conclusions.

Craig W. Osenberg, assistant professor at the University of Florida, wrote the commission staff Oct. 2 that an Edison press release and its amendment request selectively quote the panel’s report and contain potentially misleading comments.

And Paul Dayton, professor of marine ecology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, took issue with a comment in an Edison summary that the “San Onofre kelp bed is as large or larger now than it was before [the plant] began operating.”

That is misleading, since the twin reactors started up at a time when kelp was suffering from natural factors, Dayton said.

Michael Hertel, Edison manager of environmental affairs, said the plant’s impact could range from destruction of 56 acres down to zero acres.

As for talk of misrepresentation, Hertel said, the three scientists produced a report, and “all the commission has to do is read it and make up their own minds.”