Start of Edison Reef Project OKd

After seven years of planning and permits, delays and missed deadlines, Southern California Edison is set to begin construction on an artificial kelp reef project meant to offset years of damage caused by its San Onofre nuclear plant.

The California Coastal Commission on Thursday voted to allow Edison to start work on the 22.4-acre reef, the first phase of a 150-acre reef project the owners of the San Onofre plant must build to mitigate damage to the natural kelp bed just offshore.

“This is good progress today. It’s a very important step,” said Susan Hansch, deputy director of the Coastal Commission. “The sooner the rocks get in the water, the sooner we can see what will work for the rest of the reef.”

Unlike many nuclear plants, San Onofre does not have onshore cooling towers and uses ocean water for cooling, which kills large amounts of fish, eggs and larvae each year.

Edison argued that the nuclear plant was significantly less harmful to marine life than the commission believed and sought to sharply reduce the amount of required mitigation. In 1997, however, the commission unanimously insisted the utility build the 150-acre reef, restore 150 acres of the San Dieguito wetlands near Del Mar and take other measures to safeguard fish.

Scientists hope that once built, the full-scale reef of medium- and high-density kelp will rekindle marine life offshore, in turn producing more abundant fishing and better diving.

Edison cleared a major hurdle with the commission’s vote Thursday. Although it still needs to obtain a final permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, utility spokesman Steven Hansen said the company is optimistic it will still be able to meet its Aug. 1 start date for construction.

“This decision gets the ball rolling and gets us into actual construction on the mitigation requirement and we’re real pleased with that,” Hansen said.

The experimental reef is scheduled to be built by Sept. 30, at a cost of $4 million to $6 million. Construction will cost about $2.7 million, with the remainder of the money to be spent studying various reef designs.

The artificial reef will be monitored for five years while scientists determine what technology should be used to build the rest of the reef.

Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and the cities of Anaheim and Riverside are financing the project.

Construction on the lagoon restoration portion of the project, still in the planning stages, is scheduled to begin next and be completed by 2002, pending Coastal Commission approval.