Nuclear accident reawakens California’s anti-nuke movement

has been plagued by numerous safety problems including falsified paperwork, an ammonia leak, and a loose battery connection that left certain safety systems inoperable for nearly four years.

According to the Daily Beast, the NRC found in a separate investigation that plant workers failed to recognize and repair problems in a water purification system that eventually led to an ammonia leak last November.

In addition, several years ago, Hirsch said it was revealed that hourly fire watches at the power plant, which are designed to prevent any fire from burning for more than an hour, were not being conducted.

“Instead employees fabricated the fire-watch log, for five years,” Hirsch said. “This kind of thing absolutely shakes me. The safety culture there is tolerated, and all Edison did was promise sensitivity training, stressing the importance of following safety regulations. There was no fine, no penalty at all.”

Most recently, an NRC investigation found that a large number of the recently installed steam-generator tubes at the plant, which carry pressurized radioactive water, were damaged at the plant’s other operating unit. Investigators are still trying to determine why there was so much damage to the metal tubes.

Speaking to the Daily Beast, Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman, said the preliminary audit found that two tubes had been so degraded that they had to be replaced, sixty-nine tubes were thinning in excess of 20 percent, and more than 800 were thinning at more than 10 percent.

“We are trying to determine why this has occurred, and that will take time,” Dricks said.

Given the most recent developments in Japan and now at San Onofre, Del Chiaro said she has not seen so much anti-nuclear activism in California since the 1970s.

“Since the late ’70s, Americans kind of got lulled to sleep,” she said. “The nuclear industry repackaged itself as green and has attempted a renaissance. But polls show that Fukushima shifted the needle against nuclear power significantly in California, and now the San Onofre incident has hit home. I suspect that on the anniversary of Fukushima next month, a lot of Californians will be talking not only about Japan, but about whether we want a future with nuclear power here.”

In that vein, residents of San Clemente, a small coastal town a few miles north of the atomic energy plant, urged the City Council to establish independent radiation-monitoring stations and to conduct a study on cancer risks on 7 February.

Additionally, on 8 February, Senator Barbara Boxer (D – California) sent a letter to Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the NRC, urging the commission to “comprehensively review the safety” of the San Onofre plant.

Christine Miller, a real-estate broker in San Diego with no record of nuclear activism, told the Daily Beast, “The leak at San Onofre has only made me more resolute in my decision to become an anti-nuke activist. A lot of people I know are scared. This plant has a terrible safety record. Who knows what they haven’t told us?”