1st Rule of Moving: Plan for Surprises
Back in my younger days, when I still had muscles, it wasn’t unheard of for friends to ring me up and ask for help moving furniture. None of us was very settled back then, because it seemed like those calls came far too often.
The good news was that friends were obliged to return the favor. So it was that, on one sunny day long ago, I returned from having dropped off one load of my furniture to find my sofa dangling from a couple of ropes and being lowered from my second-floor apartment window. In my absence, my pals had decided that routing the sofa out the window was a much faster way to get it into the driveway than having to mess with the curves and angles of my apartment and the stairwell.
I must give the boys credit. They got the job done.
That kind of efficiency stands in sharp contrast to what we’re seeing with Southern California Edison as it tries to relocate one little ol’ decommissioned reactor from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Try as it might, it can’t get that reactor off the grounds.
To be fair, I should note that my sofa wasn’t 38 feet long, 15 feet in diameter and 950 tons. Nor was it even mildly radioactive. Still ...
Edison did start out with a plan. The idea was to move the reactor, snugly packed in steel and concrete, down the road to Oceanside where it would begin a leisurely oceanic journey through the Panama Canal to South Carolina, the place where reactors go to spend their sunset years.
However, the canal people said the load is much too large to handle. So, they put the ixnay on that.
That’s the kind of problem experienced movers run into all the time and solve on the spot, but Edison is flummoxed. You can’t blame them: A look at the map suggests the only other plausible routes to South Carolina by sea are to sail around South America or circumnavigate the globe.
Sure, there’s the train. Good idea, except railroad officials have said they won’t do it unless they’re exempted from any claims that might arise (much like my moving crew demanded). Perhaps picturing some midnight derailment in Texas, Edison won’t grant that exemption.
And by the way, the port people in Charleston now say they don’t want the reactor, either.
That leaves Edison in a bind, because it is required to move the reactor. As of late last week, the plan was to put it on wheels and drag it through several miles of sand from San Onofre to a waiting barge for transport to Oceanside. Some months from now, presumably, they’ll ship it somewhere.
The through-the-sand scenario doesn’t exactly thrill Mark Cousineau of the San Clemente chapter of the environmentalist-oriented Surfrider Foundation. He says putting the hunk on a truck and sending it down Interstate 5 during off-hours would make a lot more sense than plowing up the surf.
Indisputable, but an Edison spokesman said recently that Caltrans isn’t sure that an exit bridge could handle the load. The foundation has considered suing to stop the beach transport, Cousineau says, but hasn’t decided.
One of the ironies is that Surfrider doesn’t want to unnecessarily prolong things, Cousineau says. Already, the various roadblocks probably mean the reactor won’t be hauled away for at least several months, Cousineau says.
My crew moved roll-top desks, refrigerators and pianos. We never lost a man or a day to faulty planning.
Obviously, Edison hasn’t thought this thing through. Any mover worth his salt expects the unexpected.
It’s time for Edison to get inventive. Just like my old crew, it’s time to start thinking outside the window.
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons at (714) 966-7821 or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or at