Victor Dricks
Senior Public Affairs Officer
Region IV
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Southern
California Edison Co. has sent the NRC letters certifying that it has
permanently removed all of the fuel from its Unit 2 and 3 reactors at
the San Onofre nuclear power plant in Southern California. These letters are the company’s second certification – following its June 12 notification that it had permanently ceased operation – and officially move San Onofre into the decommissioning process.
Under
NRC rules, Edison’s letters permanently end the utility’s authorization
to operate those reactors. In addition, the NRC has notified
Edison that the Confirmatory Action Letter of March 27, 2012, is no
longer applicable. The NRC has terminated its inspection and review of
all of the activities specified in the letter, which set forth terms and
conditions necessary to prepare the reactors for restart.
Greg
Warnick, the NRC’s Senior Resident Inspector, in the near term will
continue onsite inspections of activities associated with
decommissioning, site staffing levels and plant security and safety. The
facility will remain subject to NRC oversight thoughout the
decommissioning process.
Meanwhile,
we expect Edison to request several changes to both units’ licenses to
reflect the transition to decommissioning, while still meeting the
relevant requirements for safety, security and emergency preparedness
now that San Onofre is no longer operating. Planning is currently
underway for an orderly transfer of regulatory responsibility from the
NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to the NRC’s Office of
Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, which
oversees decommissioning nuclear plants.
Planning
is also underway for the NRC to hold a public meeting in the vicinity
of the plant in early fall to explain the decommissioning process.
Edison is now drafting its decommissioning plan, which they must submit to the NRC by June 12, 2015, two years after they formally shut down the plant.
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