San Onofre Scare: Object Not Pipe Bomb

Operators of the San Onofre nuclear complex declared a precautionary alert Friday morning when a worker found a mysterious-looking piece of copper pipe that authorities feared could be a bomb.

The alert--the highest-level emergency ever declared at San Onofre--was called off about 12:30 p.m. when investigators determined the pipe was not an explosive device.

Southern California Edison and the FBI will look into why the pipe was sitting on a deck 100 yards or more outside the 4 1/2-foot-thick concrete safety shell of San Onofre Unit III, on the coast south of San Clemente. The foot-long piece, with screw caps on both ends, was found behind a cargo container used for recent maintenance work.

Plant spokesman Ray Golden said the pipe may have been left accidentally by maintenance workers. “We don’t think anyone was trying to create some sort of hoax,” he said.

The pipe was found about 10:15 a.m., triggering an alert that treated it as possibly explosive. The alert was the second lowest of four emergency declarations used by nuclear plants nationwide.

Only the lowest-level emergency stage, known as an “unusual event,” has been declared before at the San Onofre complex of three nuclear plants.

Unit I started operating in 1967, and is now mothballed and set for dismantling starting next year. Units II and III opened in the early 1980s.

Plant operators contacted federal and state agencies as well as area cities. Explosives experts arrived from the Camp Pendleton Marine base, along with a team from the FBI, Golden said. After the pipe was declared nonexplosive, the alert was called off.

The pipe was a safe distance away from sensitive equipment, Golden said.

“Even if it was detonated, it would have no impact on any aspect of plant functioning,” he said. He added that all employees entering the plants’ protected areas must pass through metal detectors and explosive detectors, and any hand-carried items must be X-rayed.

There was no interruption of service at the complex. While some employees were evacuated, Edison officials said, teams remained in the control rooms to operate and monitor the two plants.