Fight to Shut Down San Onofre Continues

A few dozen residents appeared before the San Clemente City Council on Tuesday night to continue the fight to shut down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

At the May 17 council meeting, dozens of residents from San Clemente and around Southern California showed up to try to persuade the council to put a resolution on the agenda for an upcoming meeting.

Only Mayor Lori Donchak wanted to do it, and the rest of the council shot her motion down. Tuesday, however, Councilman Jim Evert made a motion to put the resolution on a July agenda.

“I’m not against nuclear power, which probably doesn’t please a lot of you out there,” Evert said. “But I’m concerned. I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve been dragging our feet a little bit, myself included.”

He cited concerns about the waste stored on-site and other issues that have  received national attention since the disastrous earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

Evert made the motion to put the item—a resolution drawn up by a coalition of local groups environmental groups—on the agenda in July. Donchak seconded it, but council members Bob Baker, Tim Brown and Jim Dahl voted against the motion.

Baker said there was already an item on the agenda for Sept. 27, when representatives from San Onofre and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be on hand to discuss lessons learned from the Japanese disaster.

Brown said the council should not take hasty action in putting on the agenda a resolution that would not be legally binding. (The city of San Clemente has no authority over the operations at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station; oversight happens at a federal and state level with the NRC and the California Public Utilities Commission, among other agencies.)

“I’m perfectly comfortable with being the object of ire on this,” Brown said. “I’m endeavoring to inform myself and educate myself … before we call for the shutdown of the plant.”

Other stories about San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station:

•  (opinion column)