May 23 (Reuters) – A California senator on Thursday called
on the country’s top nuclear watchdog to complete all
investigations surrounding the crippled San Onofre nuclear plant
before the agency decides whether one of the reactors is safe to
operate.
Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate’s Environment
and Public Works Committee, questioned Nuclear Regulatory
Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane on the San Onofre
investigations at Macfarlane’s hearing in Washington to be
re-nominated as chairman of the five-member commission.
Both reactors at the 2,150-megawatt San Onofre nuclear
station, halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, have been
shut for 16 months following discovery of accelerated
degradation of thousands of tightly packed tubes inside the
units’ new steam generators.
Loss of the plant’s output has kept wholesale power prices
in California high and strained the Southern California grid.
San Onofre’s largest owner and operator, Southern California
Edison (SCE), is working to obtain NRC approval to restart San
Onofre 2 as soon as this summer.
In letters to Boxer, Macfarlane disclosed that in addition
to the NRC safety review of SCE’s restart proposal, the agency
has two additional investigations looking into potential
criminal activity.
Both the NRC Office of Investigations and the NRC Office of
Inspector General are conducting independent investigations at
San Onofre, Macfarlane told Boxer last month.
Each investigation is focused on “allegations of willful
wrongdoing and is separate in scope and purpose from the NRC
staff’s ongoing safety evaluations,” Macfarlane said.
The Office of Investigations is looking into wrongdoing by
SCE related to the utility’s previous license amendment activity
while the Inspector General’s investigation looks into the
behavior of NRC employees and San Onofre.
“Any information that appears to have the potential to
impact public health and safety will be immediately provided by
the investigators to the NRC staff,” Macfarlane told Boxer in
the letter.
At Thursday’s hearing, Boxer, a Democrat, asked Macfarlane
if the best course of action would be for the agency to complete
its investigations before deciding whether the reactor can
operate.
Macfarlane said it was her “personal belief” that the
technical staff should have all conclusions from the
investigations before making a restart decision, but noted that
the work is separate and should remain so.
She said it now appears that the Office of Investigations
probe and the technical safety review will conclude “around the
same time.”
If the NRC technical staff finishes first and is ready to
make a recommendation on a restart, Macfarlane said they would
ask the Office of Investigations if there are significant safety
issues that should affect their restart decision.
However, Macfarlane said work by the technical staff and the
Office of Investigation “are two separate processes and it’s
very important that the agency maintain the integrity of these
processes.”
“I agree there should be integrity, I do not agree, under
any circumstances, that there ought to be a restart until the
entire investigation is complete,” Boxer said. “We have a bit of
difference.”
“To me, it’s pretty simple,” Boxer said. “All parts of the
investigation have to be complete: the criminal part, the part
that deals with complete and accurate information and all the
rest, the technical part.”
Macfarlane, an expert on radioactive waste, joined the NRC
as chairman in 2012 and was confirmed to fill the remaining year
left in the term of Gregory Jaczko who resigned.
If confirmed, Macfarlane will serve a full five-year term to
expire in June 2018.
SCE, a unit of Edison International, operates San
Onofre and owns a 78-percent stake. Sempra Energy’s San
Diego utility owns 20 percent.
