Hundreds Flock to Public Meeting Debating Restart of Potentially Dangerous San Onofre Reactor

By Madison Ruppert
theintelhub.com
October 11, 2012
Over 850 people turned out at the recent public meeting debating the plan to restart the highly contentious and potentially dangerous San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Southern California which has remained offline for almost nine months.
A report published earlier this year revealed that there is a distinct possibility of even disasters occurring in the future which are significantly larger than the radioactive leaks discovered earlier this year which were later reviewed by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Augmented Inspection Team.
The relatively massive group that showed up to the public meeting was characterized by The Orange County Register as a “sometimes-boisterous crowd” and included “plant operator Southern California Edison, anti-nuclear activists, a union representative for San Onofre workers and state utility and energy regulators.”
The meeting was preceded by a demonstration outside the St. Regis Monarch Beach Hotel during which some activists called for a more thorough review of Southern California Edison’s plan to restart one of the two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power station and others called for a complete shutdown of the plant.
Last week the NRC received a proposal from Edison in which they sought to restart the Unit 2 reactor at 70 percent capacity.
“[Edison] expected to eliminate the vibrations among steam generator tubes believed to have caused the problems that have kept the plant closed,” according to the Register.
However, as the above-linked report reveals, the problems are far too critical to treat in a less-than-serious manner.
Officials with the NRC stated that their review of Edison’s plans themselves will likely take months.
The Unit 3 reactor has problems with the steam generator tubes (see above stories for more information on the problems at San Onofre) which are far more serious than those at Unit 2.
No plans to restart or even repair Unit 3 have been handed over to the NRC by Edison as of yet.
“Let me be clear,” said Gene Stone, an activist out of San Clemente, according to the Register. “We stand for decommissioning this old nuclear plant as soon as possible, before ratepayers or taxpayers spend any more money to repair it.”
However, the Register makes a point of stating that a comment in support of continuing the review to restart the reactor was met with “loud applause from supporters in the audience.”
That’s hardly surprising seeing as the large crowd “included a large contingent of Southern California Edison employees bused by the company to the site.”
In other words, the company stuffed the audience with their own employees who have a quite clear ulterior motive behind their support for the plant restart.
Story continues over at theintelhub.com