San Onofre waits for OK to move nuclear reactor vessel

By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer | Monday, November 10, 2003 9:55 PM PST ∞

SAN ONOFRE ---- If everything had gone according to plan, San Onofre's 770-ton decommissioned nuclear reactor vessel would be bobbing its way toward South America aboard a barge by now.

But instead, the radioactive package of concrete and steel sits behind a chain-link fence at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station 17 miles north of Oceanside as officials wait for permission from the U.S. Department of Transportation to move it.

"We are still waiting for DOT approval, and we are optimistic that we will be able to get it," said Ray Golden, spokesman for Southern California Edison, the plant's majority owner.

Transportation Department spokesman Joe Belcambre, who works for the agency's Research and Special Programs Administration, said Monday the decision should be made soon.

"They've been in this process for a while, and we hope we can make the decision within the next couple of weeks," Belcambre said.

San Onofre's first reactor, which generated enough electricity to power more than 400,000 homes, was shut down in 1993. A reactor vessel holds hundreds of uranium fuel rods while they undergo fission.

Now, a decade later, the carbon steel reactor vessel sits waiting for a trip to Barnwell, S.C., where it will be buried in a graveyard for low-level nuclear waste. Barnwell is the nation's only long-term disposal site for retired reactors. According to Edison, a person who sat atop the entombed reactor vessel for one hour would receive a dose of radiation equivalent to half a chest X-ray.

Originally, Edison planned to ship the reactor vessel from California to South Carolina aboard a specially designed railroad car. But that idea fell through when the railroad company refused to accept legal liability if an accident occurred in transit.

A trip through the Panama Canal was also nixed because the vessel is too heavy. The package is also too heavy for surface roads and there is no airplane large enough to haul it through the air, leaving Edison with only one remaining route.

Current plans call for a special transport vehicle to haul the reactor vessel along the beach from San Onofre to the Del Mar Boat Basin at Camp Pendleton. From there, the vessel would be loaded onto a barge and hauled south, taking an 11,000-mile trip around South America before eventually docking in South Carolina.

But before the process can begin, Edison needs a domestic shipping permit from the U.S. Transportation Department.

"Because the trip starts and ends at U.S. ports, the DOT considers it a domestic trip, even though it goes around South America," Golden explained.

Getting that permit has been difficult. At the last minute, the transportation department fired off a long list of questions for Edison to answer. Perhaps most significantly, Transportation Department officials wondered why Edison has not notified individual countries along the route that the reactor vessel will be coming their way.

Edison responded in writing that it did not notify individual countries along the route because the U.S. State Department advised it "should not apply for Chilean authorization for the passage because it was concerned that our doing so would set an unfavorable precedent for future shipments."

Golden said Edison has made a few phone calls after receiving the department's list of questions.

"All of the countries along the route have been alerted," Golden said.

Now, all Edison can do is wait and see if it will finally get the one remaining permit necessary.

Meanwhile, Brendan Bell, a conservation representative for the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program, called the 11,000-mile trip "absurd on its face."

He said the federal government should have helped Edison and the railroad industry work out their liability issues, thus avoiding the long trip through dangerous waters.

"Making Southern California Edison and the railroad company fight this out isn't the right response," Bell said. "This is just the federal government dropping the ball."

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.

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