San Onofre Mitigation Work to Be Checked

The California Coastal Commission on Wednesday approved a $2.3-million, two-year monitoring program for projects required to make up for years of environmental damage caused by the San Onofre nuclear plant.

It was the latest in a series of steps that the state has imposed on Southern California Edison, majority owner of a plant that produces about 20% of the energy used in Southern California. Edison is being required to build artificial reefs, restore wetlands, fund a fish hatchery and reduce fish deaths at its nuclear power plant south of San Clemente.

“The truth of the matter is any generation of electricity is going to have environmental impacts,” said Edison spokesman Ray Golden. “I know of no other power plant that has agreed to do the environmental mitigation that San Onofre is doing.”

Progress on the environmental work, however, has been bogged down by disputes and bureaucracy. After a $46-million, 15-year study, scientists said in 1989 that the plant, which doesn’t have cooling towers and relies on ocean water, was sucking in and killing tons of fish and billions of larvae and eggs every year. Churned sand and mud near outtake pipes diminished water quality and killed nearby kelp beds and other marine life.

Environmentalists say that the nuclear plant, which sucks in 1.6 million gallons of seawater per minute for cooling and recycles it back to the ocean, has irreparably damaged the marine environment from Point Conception to the Mexican border.

The plant and its environmental work “are the poster child for why you do not allow people to build nuclear power plants first and test for adverse consequences later,” said Mark Massara, the Sierra Club’s head of coastal programs. “We will never recoup the damage . . . wrought on our coastal environment.”

Although the commission ordered environmental steps taken in 1991, disputes delayed the creation of a concrete plan for years. In 1997, all sides settled on four components--creating a 150-acre reef, funding a fish hatchery, restoring 150 acres of wetlands and reducing the amount of fish that get sucked into the cooling system.

“It’s progressing well,” said Samir Tanious, program manager with Southern California Edison. “We have finished the experimental reef ahead of schedule and we are trying to get the [environmental impact report] for the wetlands out by the end of the year.”

About 30,000 tons of concrete and quarry rock were used to build an experimental 22-acre reef a half-mile offshore between San Clemente and San Mateo Point in September. The Coastal Commission and its consultants, biologists from UC Santa Barbara, will monitor this $3-million reef for five years. The analysis will be used to design and build the remainder of the $50-million, 150-acre artificial reef, considered the largest project of its kind in the nation.

The utility has also spent nearly $5 million on a white sea bass hatchery in Carlsbad, which produces 40,000 fish per year. The United Anglers of Southern California take the fish after they are 3 inches long and place them in contained pens in harbors along the California coast. The fish are tagged and released after they reach 8 inches.

Planning for the restoration project at the San Dieguito wetlands near Del Mar is underway, and the San Dieguito River Park Joint Powers Authority is expected to release environmental documents by year’s end.

Edison plans to submit a final wetlands plan to the Coastal Commission in late summer or early fall 2000, and begin work in spring 2001, according to the commission’s staff report.

The San Dieguito wetlands project, expected to cost about $50 million, will be the third-largest wetlands restoration in all of Southern California, after the 1,100-acre Bolsa Chica project near Huntington Beach and the 600-acre Batiquitos Lagoon project in Carlsbad.

The utility has also been experimenting with deterrents to keep fish from entering the intake system.

At first, workers used lights, but that attracted fish into the intake system and away from the “fish elevators” that return the animals safely to the ocean. Now, the utility is occasionally reversing water flow in the intake pipes and heating the water to chase fish toward the elevators. This has reduced fish mortality from 20 tons per year to about 18 tons per year, Tanious said.

Massara, of the Sierra Club, said although wetlands restoration and fish hatcheries are beneficial to the environment, “the best possible mitigation would be to turn the thing off tomorrow and start taking it apart.”

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Mandated Environmental Projects Underway

Southern California Edison started an artificial reef this summer, is planning wetlands restoration and is operating a fish hatchery as ordered by the California Coastal Commission to make up for marine damage caused by its San Onofre nuclear power plant. Scientists are still trying to figure out how to keep fish from being sucked into the plant’s cooling system.

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