Council Wants Real-Time Public Access to NRC Radiation Monitoring

San Clemente City Council members agreed Tuesday that the public needs more immediate access to the results of radiation monitoring around the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Currently, measurements from nearly 60 radiation monitors around the San Onofre plant are only published once a year by the Nuclear Regulatory Comission.

"We've mentioned a lack of trust with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," said San Clemente Green founder Gary Headrick to council. "We should take more precautions to protect ourselves. The NRC has been slow to act on some of the things you've identified as important."

Headrick cited

Based on a report from city emergency planner Jen Tucker, however, the council determined it wasn't a lack of monitoring capacity at issue but a lack of real-time information flowing to the public.

As with most issues connected to the San Onofre plant, the council has no control over the NRC or any of the agencies responsible for routinely monitoring the plant.

The city does have some radiological equipment, but it's only deployed in emergencies in conjunction with other agencies.

Real-time – or, as close to real time as is possible – radiation monitoring takes more than just a Geiger counter. Those detectors don't provide enough information to determine whether the radiation's source is from a leak or someone with a 4G phone, Tucker said.

"It's not just going down to the hardware store and buying a radiation monitor and putting it in," said Councilman Bob Baker. "[But] I completely agree we should get the NRC to publish the radiation data as soon as possible."

Monitors can show basic information remotely, but it takes someone physically collecting air samples from the devices in-situ, taking them back to a laboratory and testing them to determine the type and source of environmental radiation, Tucker said.

The Environmental Protection Agency collects radiological information that is available as soon as its verified in a lab, and then disbursed online to the public within a day or two. But the EPA's RadNet system is designed to monitor the environment nationally, and its closest monitor is in Anaheim.

The California Department of Health also has a monitor south of San Onofre which it tests once a month, a de-facto cross check of the SONGS data that the NRC monitors.

SONGS uses a different radiation monitoring method to also test seawater, ocean floor sediment, kelp, ground water, coastal sediment and fish.

The City Council ultimately voted unanimously to pressure the feds to force the NRC to make its monitoring information available to the public as soon as its collected.

Tucker said according to the yearly radiological documents, the San Onofre plant has never emitted radiation near the limit of the amount its California Public Utilities Commission license states it can't go above.