SAN DIEGO — Even though the San Onofre power plant has been offline for years, people are up in arms over the site. A watchdog group is calling for court intervention to halt the burial of nuclear waste along the California coastline.
The advocacy group Public Watchdogs is trying to end the transfer of nuclear waste from wet storage into dry storage canisters at the site. The group claims the canisters have thin walls and that the first four canisters buried were defective.
The lawsuit also claims the decommissioning plan as well as the canisters have not undergone a proper risk assessment. There is a lot of concern from the public because the canisters are being buried about 100 feet from the water near an earthquake fault and near millions of people.
Congressman Mike Levin visited San Onofre in April after an incident with one of the canisters that occurred in August 2018. The congressman has since gone on to propose legislation that would move San Onofre up the list of priority for permanently storing the nuclear waste.