Train agencies such as Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) have convinced many representatives that keeping trains running on the crumbling South Orange County coast is somehow “vital” or “essential.” The agencies have created a smokescreen by claiming significant passenger ridership, supposedly valuable freight, and critical national defense needs as excuses to prop up this expiring train line (see Trains vs. Beaches, Parts II, III, and IV). When those excuses evaporate under intelligent scrutiny, the specter of transporting nuclear waste – supposedly only possible via train – arises.
As most South Orange County residents are aware, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, tucked between the southern-most city of San Clemente in Orange County and Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, was shut down in 2013. Its nuclear waste was intended for a distant, permanent, nuclear waste repository, but the ultimate destination was rescinded. As a result, the CA Coastal Commission approved a permit to store the 1,800 tons of waste in 73 specially designed cannisters on the San Onofre site. No one knows exactly when they might be moved. Progress is measured in tiny increments: in June of 2023, Congressman Levin landed a $26 million grant to enlist 13 teams to determine ways in which communities might be enticed to take the waste.
It is true that the train tracks happen to run conveniently right past the defunct power plant. This would certainly render rail transportation of nuclear waste a future option, so long as the railroad is still operational when the US government finally settles on a storage option. Given that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 called for a storage solution by 1998 and we’re still inching ahead at a glacial pace, it’s highly likely that coastal rail will have succumbed to climate change, landslides and/or coastal erosion before any cannisters are moved. Nevertheless, it is also true that, according to the EPA,
“Radioactive material can be transported by truck, train, plane or ship. There are special regulations that keep drivers, the public, and the environment safe.”
In fact, in 2012, a 398.5 ton piece of San Onofre, 100 yards long by 17-feet high, was transported by night to a final resting place on a specially designed vehicle on the 5 freeway, which, like the train tracks, also runs right past the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant.
The San Onofre site is holding 3.6 million pounds or 1,800 tons of waste, stored in 123 “thin wall” canisters. While each “cask” averages to just 14.6 tons of waste per cannister, the containers add weight as well: “Dry casks are designed to hold up to about 10 to 15 metric tons of spent fuel… and weigh 100 tons or more when loaded.” The thin wall casks are for storage; for transportation, they are placed inside another cask, weighing between ~140 tons and 225 tons. Note that while such cargo requires a specialty vehicle, whether moved by truck or train car, the combined 325-ton cargo—the 225-ton external cask, plus the waste and cannister totaling 100 tons –is still significantly below the nearly 400-ton San Onofre cargo that departed by specialty truck in 2012.
If tracks are no longer convenient or available to San Onofre, as they are unlikely to be given the decades it will take to resolve the nuclear waste final depository problem, truck transport would be the obvious alternative. Alternately, with the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars that could be saved instead of fighting inevitable Climate Change to temporarily prop up the failing tracks year after year, the government could build a temporary pier at San Onofre to enable transportation of spent fuel by ship. Should OCTA opt for relocation of coastal rail, it’s clear that shutting down the existing line would not give rise to a sudden demand for nuclear waste removal.
Maintaining the tracks in San Clemente and Dana Point at the expense of their beaches with the uninformed excuse that the San Diego Segment of tracks is the only solution for removing nuclear waste from San Onofre is not only wrong but would truly be an environmental disaster: wholesale destruction of the coast on behalf of nuclear energy solutions.
Laurie Girand is an 18-year resident of San Juan Capistrano, a former candidate for Assembly District 74 and an Advisor to Capo Cares, a coastal advocacy group located in the Capistrano Beach community in the City of Dana Point. Since 2014, Capo Cares has followed issues of interest to community members, such as coastal erosion, beautification, public health and safety, local development and arts and culture. The group updates the community via daily postings
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