San Onofre to Create Advisory Group to Keep Public Informed about Decommissioning

An advisory panel will keep the public informed during the upcoming decommissioning of the San Onofre nuclear power plant in northern San Diego County, plant owners announced Friday.

"We are determined to complete the safe decommissioning of San Onofre as expeditiously and cost efficiently as possible," according to officials of majority owner Southern California Edison. "Our immediate goal is to safely move the power plant's spent fuel, now cooling in pools, into dry cask storage as quickly and as carefully as we can until the government creates the long- term storage option that it has committed to implement."

The company, which co-owns the plant along with San Diego Gas & Electric and the city of Riverside, also said in a statement Friday morning that more details about the advisory panel—dubbed the Community Engagement Panel—would be released soon.

Plant owners decided last June that the plant would be decommissioned to avoid the mounting cost of seeking regulatory permission to restart it.

The plant's two reactors have not been in operation since January 2012, after a small leak was discovered in a relatively new steam generator.

—City News Service