Don't Worry About San Onofre Safety, San Juan Businesses Told

A Southern California Edison spokesman on Wednesday told San Juan Capistrano businesspeople that the San Onofre nuclear plant is doing everything it can to hold its own against Mother Nature.

Chris Abel, at a Chamber of Commerce networking breakfast, said that officials at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are closely examining the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s latest safety recommendations for American nuclear power plants.

“That’s a process that the entire nuclear industry is going through right now,” Abel said to the about 30 people gathered in the Vintage Steakhouse.

In March, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the eastern coast of Japan, creating a tsunami that caused widespread devastation and damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant enough to cause three reactors to melt down. 

After investigating the incident, an NRC task force released a list of recommendations for the nation's nuclear power plants, and Abel said Southern California Edison officials are looking at the recommendations.

“There will be lessons learned,” Abel said. “But it’s going to take a while.”

“To give you a frame of reference,” he said, “after Three Mile Island, it took about a year and a half before they really determined what the recommendations were.”

However, Abel said, people should feel assured about San Onofre’s ability to withstand the largest tsunamis and earthquakes that the area around the power plant could produce.

According to Abel, the San Onofre facility can take double the maximum amount of peak ground acceleration that local fault lines make.

As for tsunamis, the latest research shows that the largest wave that nearby conditions could produce would be between 19 feet to 22 feet, according to Abel.

A 30-foot wall and the reactor's location of 50 feet above the sea, more than compensates for that Abel said.

 “We have backup system upon back up system upon backup system,” Abel said.

At the end of a presentation, when Abel gave an overview of the plant’s inner workings and environmental mitigation efforts, he took questions from the audience.

After an attendee asked about the plant’s security force, Abel said the security personnel are well-trained.

 “We spare absolutely no expense on technology or their training,” Abel said. “Plus we have the resources of Camp Pendleton behind us if we need it.”

Another attendee asked how the plant, built in the 1970s, compares with plants constructed with newer technology.

“They [the reactors] were built back in that time, but the technology that we’re using is completely up to date,” Abel said. “It’s not like we have 1979 or 1984 technology running the plant. We have 2011 technology running the plant.”

Dana Point resident Penny Maynard, who attended the  breakfast to hear more information about the power plant, said the presentation was good.

“I thought it provided a lot of detail,” Maynard said.