Kelp Help Flounders

Southern California Edison has fallen behind schedule in a massive state-ordered program to build a giant kelp reef and restore wetlands to compensate for years of ocean damage caused by the San Onofre nuclear plant.

Less than 15 months after the state set a strict timetable for the long-awaited projects, the wetlands restoration is lagging six months behind deadline. And while designers once hoped to start work this year on the artificial kelp reef off the San Clemente coast--expected to be the largest of its kind in the nation--the project probably will not begin until autumn 1999.

But Edison officials say they remain strongly committed to the marine restoration projects. And state regulators say they believe regulatory red tape is partly to blame for the delay.

“Things are behind, there’s no question, but it’s not all their fault,” said Susan Hansch, deputy director of the state Coastal Commission.

The $118-million program is meant to offset environmental damage caused by the twin 1,100-megawatt nuclear plants since they started operating in the early 1980s. Unlike many nuclear plants, San Onofre lacks large onshore cooling towers and instead depends on ocean water for cooling. Scientists concluded nine years ago that the plants’ giant cooling system was sucking up and killing tons of fish, eggs and larvae each year.

Although the commission first ordered the restoration projects in 1991, work was delayed repeatedly as Edison sought to sharply scale back the scope of the work, arguing that the nuclear plant was less harmful to marine life than scientists had believed. But commissioners voted unanimously in April 1997 to require that the utility build the 150-acre reef, restore 115 acres of the San Dieguito wetlands near Del Mar and conduct other work to safeguard fish.

Now, with the pace of the program dragging, the Coastal Commission at its San Francisco meeting on Friday will review a staff report on the delays. The panel is expected to formally amend the timetable when it meets in Oceanside in October.

Hansch vows the project will continue pushing ahead.

“What we want is results,” she said. “That’s the job I have . . . to keep them on the conditions and to get it done.”

And Edison says it is trying to move swiftly while meeting legal requirements.

“We have complied with every deadline set forth in the [commission] permit,” said Frank Melone, who manages the project for Edison.

Melone said the 1997 timetable set by commissioners may have been too optimistic because such a large program can take a few years to go through environmental review.

“We told the staff that,” Melone said. “We tried to encourage them to put a schedule in the permit that was realistic. . . . They were sort of in the mind-set to keep our feet to the fire.”

One of the program’s most scientifically complex elements is the artificial kelp reef off San Clemente. A 17-acre experimental reef will be monitored for five years and then expanded to 150 acres of medium- and high-density kelp. That should rekindle more marine life offshore, in turn producing more productive fishing and diving.

“It’s got to be one of the biggest ones that’s been done anywhere,” said Steve Schroeter, a staff scientist working on the project for the Coastal Commission. “More fish. More invertebrates. More kelp forest.”

The reef has been slowed because of unexpected environmental hurdles, the Coastal Commission report explains.

Designers had hoped to install the small reef during ideal weather conditions late this summer or early this fall. But state officials have decided full-scale environmental review is required, probably pushing back construction until summer or fall 1999.

“I’d hate to put the onus on Edison,” Schroeter said. “Edison met all their deadlines--and then, all of a sudden, we had to do an environmental impact statement.”

The wetlands restoration has been delayed for various reasons, such as studies Edison conducted to research potential stream flow.

Although the commission ordered a final restoration plan with government approvals by November of this year, the environmental review is six months behind, meaning the public may not see a draft impact report before late fall. That could delay the start of restoration until late 1999 or later.

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“It’s not because of anything that Edison has done or failed to do,” Melone said. The review process, he said, “takes a lot of time.”

The San Dieguito wetlands project will be the third-largest wetlands restoration in all of Southern California, behind the 1,100-acre Bolsa Chica project near Huntington Beach and the 600-acre Batiquitos Lagoon project in Carlsbad.

“This is a really major event in coastal restoration,” said Jack Fancher, a wetlands expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the lead federal agency at San Dieguito. But he too said that analysis, peer reviews and resolving some of the project’s unknown elements have taken time.

“The pace at which Edison has produced documents and analysis has been much slower than expected,” he added. But “we are making progress and believe that we’ll have a thorough, complete analysis in front of the public in November.”

Also behind schedule are long-delayed plans to install special equipment at the plant to prevent fish from being killed. A 1989 study found the plant cooling system was sucking up and killing 21 to 57 tons of fish and 4 billion eggs and larvae each year. Special lights to guide wayward fish out of the system could be installed later this year.

Despite the marine project’s slow progress, Mark Massara, Sierra Club coastal programs chief, says he is not overly concerned.

“I’d rather have an environmental analysis that leads to a better project,” he said, “than a knee-jerk reaction that leads to further environmental damage.”

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Marine Restoration

Southern California Edison is behind schedule on creating its experimental 17-acre reef. The reef is part of a mitigation project, after a study said San Onofre’s cooling system caused kelp beds in the area to shrink by 60% and killed millions of fish and fish eggs.

How Kelp Beds Were Killed

Outflow pipes from San Onofre diffused water that created muddy clouds of sediment, which obscured light the kelp needed to grow. Discharge Pipe Detail:

Pipe buried 3 feet under sand

18 feet in diameter

63 ports, on unit 2 and unit 3 discharge systems

Longest pipe almost 9,000 feet long

Maximum depth about 50 feet

Giant Kelp (Macrocystis) grow to 250 feet long. Kelp forests are a unique ecosystem that provides habitat for a multitude of fish and invertebrates, including crabs and lobsters, and are a source of oxygenn and nutrients.

Why Reef Is Needed

Sand levels are deep in the test area. Kelp can’t root in sand and need an outcropping. How Edison hopes the reefs will solve the problem.

1. Artificial reef modules placed near existing adult kelp.

2. Sporophytes (2.5-millimeter plants) gravitate from existing beds

3. Small plants take root in artificial reef. They can grow as much as 3 feet a day.

Tall Reef Unsuccessful

Higher reefs were tried on another project but failed because they attract too many fish which distrubed kelp.

Source: Southern California Edison; Times reports