Is the long -- and so far futile -- effort to move the 3.55 million pounds of nuclear waste off the beach at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) on the verge of finally making some progress?

Or is an out-of-court settlement announced last week just more of the same?

The attorneys for the plaintiffs who initiated the case describe the agreement as an important step toward finally soothing the nerves of many of the 8.4 million people in Southern California who live within a 50-mile radius of SONGS.

But the settlement has not assuaged a number of other activists, united in their antagonism for the utility that manages the now-shuttered plant, who consider the agreement practically toothless and say it offers false hope.

There are also serious questions about whether any sites can be found, not to mention whether the regulatory, political and anticipated legal hurdles can be cleared.

Stranded spent fuel is hardly unique to SONGS. Nuclear waste has piled up at plants across the country, nearing 80,000 metric tons, with the industry adding about 2,200 tons each year.

The federal government was supposed to come up with a long-term storage solution but has never opened a working site.

Michael Aguirre, the former City Attorney of San Diego who is one of the lead attorneys in the plaintiffs' case, said he understands the scope of the problem.

"As I have said many times, it's going to take as much intellectual horsepower to figure out how to dispose of this nuclear waste as it did to create it," Aguirre said.

What the settlement lays out

The settlement came after months of private negotiations between the plant's operators, Southern California Edison, and a pair of the utility's harshest critics. It was approved Monday afternoon by San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes.

Under the agreement, Edison will adhere to a quicker schedule to inspect and maintain the canisters containing SONGS waste and will produce a contingency plan should any of them crack or leak. The utility also pledged to give progress reports on a monthly, and then quarterly basis.

In addition, the deal stipulates that Edison make a good faith effort to look at sites to send SONGS waste. That includes spending $4 million to hire a team of experts to develop a strategy.

In what Aguirre says is a critical element, the agreement is enforceable by the court, meaning the judge will retain authority to make sure its terms are carried out.

"The agreement gives up hope where there was none before," said Maria Severson, Aguirre's legal partner in the case. "And the fact there are benchmarks that have to be met will allow us to see the progress."

In a statement Monday, Edison president Ron Nichols said the utility "is proud to take a leadership role in what we expect will become an industry-wide effort over many years to work with the federal government and other key stakeholders to achieve off-site storage."

The Union-Tribune asked to speak to a company representative to elaborate on the agreement for this story but an Edison spokeswoman said "we are not commenting on the settlement" beyond what was said in prepared remarks Monday.

The lawsuit was filed by Patricia Borchmann of Escondido and Citizens' Oversight, an East County-based civic group, to fight a 2015 decision by the California Coastal Commission that approved a 20-year permit for Edison to expand a storage system to place the plant's spent nuclear fuel into heavy, dry casks.

The national coordinator for Citizens Oversight, Ray Lutz, has called Edison's storage plans an example of "the insanity of this nuclear industry."

Lutz said the agreement is "about the best that we can do" and hopes some real progress will be made.

"I don't know if we're going to be successful on moving this (waste) but I think forcing everyone to talk about it is going to be really useful," Lutz said. "We keep kicking the can down the road but not ever talking about the solution."

Potential sites to send SONGS waste

Getting the waste off the beach at San Onofre has long been a priority for many who live in the area. California has a notable history of seismic activity, fueling fears of a Fukushima-like tsunami and SONGS is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean to the west and Interstate 5, one of the busiest freeways in the U.S., to the east.

The agreement specifically mentions three sites that could potentially accept SONGS spent fuel.

One is the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located about 50 miles from Phoenix. Even before Monday's announcement, Aguirre mentioned Palo Verde as a logical place for San Onofre's waste because Edison is a part-owner at Palo Verde, with a 15.8 percent stake.

Last year an official with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said in an email to the Union-Tribune that Palo Verde used a different storage design than San Onofre.

The same day the settlement was announced, the utility that operates Palo Verde, Arizona Public Service, said it is not interested in accepting any spent fuel from SONGS.

"We are not licensed to store used fuel from any other facility, and there is no initiative that makes sense to start the licensing process," the company said in a statement.

Severson was undeterred by the Palo Verde statement, saying, "I think it's way too early to tell."

The agreement also mentions two other sites, one in West Texas and one in southeastern New Mexico.

Each of the sites are categorized as "consolidated interim storage" facilities -- based in relatively isolated locations that would require consent from their local communities to accept nuclear waste.

The people behind the New Mexico site are upbeat but the facility has yet to break ground.

"We have a very isolated area here that is seismically stable and we have utilities that come to the site," said John Heaton, the chairman of the Eddy-Lea Alliance, named for the two counties backing the project. "It's 35 miles from any population. It's just a superb location."

Heaton's group has filed a 40-year licensing request with the NRC for the site, which is proposed to be massive -- holding about 120,000 metric tons of waste -- and has received support from local political leaders and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

If the project gets approved, developers say it could be up and running in as little as five years -- a quick turnaround given the complicated and deliberate pace associated with nuclear projects.

"This is a way we can create employment," said Heaton, who back in May briefed the SONGS Community Engagement Panel about the project. "There will be a number of years of construction and it will provide revenue for the state and local area."

The West Texas site is more problematic.

Located near the town of Andrews, Texas, the facility is owned by a company called Waste Control Specialists. The site already stores low-level radioactive waste but its plans to expand have been put on hold because of financial problems.

In June, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a merger Waste Control Specialists executives were seeking. A phone message to the company's public relations representative asking about Waste Control's interest in accepting waste from SONGS went unreturned.

When asked about the question marks, Aguirre said, as per the settlement, potential sites for SONGS waste are not limited to West Texas, Palo Verde or New Mexico.

"Those are just some of the prospects in the near future," he said.

There has been movement on Capitol Hill and by the Trump administration to resurrect the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The federal government has already spent $15 billion on Yucca but the process to revive the site -- provided it survived political, regulatory and legal hurdles -- would likely take years.

"Yucca as far as I'm concerned is very much an option," Aguirre said.

Lutz said he also wants Edison to consider moving the waste within the boundaries of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, to a location "about three or four miles inland" that would offer more of a buffer zone than the current site.

"It is a seismically active area and it's only a few kilometers from a fault line but at least it would be (farther than) 100 feet from the water," Lutz said. "Where they're putting it now is truly insane."

What nuclear industry experts say

Eugene Grecheck, former president of the American Nuclear Society who worked for years in nuclear engineering and development for Dominion Energy in Virginia, said he had no doubts about the physical act of moving nuclear waste to another site.

"From an engineering standpoint, it's not that difficult," Grecheck said. "But I think the licensing process would be contested no matter where you put it. Somebody will contest the location and I suspect it would be a long, drawn out process."

Peter Lyons, a former commissioner for the NRC and former assistant secretary for nuclear energy for the U.S. Department of Energy, agreed, adding that licensing requirements chew up time.

The NRC, which is charged with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy, must sign off on any transfer and moving waste across state lines would likely involve the U.S. Department of Transportation.

And while the spent fuel at SONGS is the responsibility of SCE, the waste eventually must be handed over to the U.S. Department of Energy.

"There's multiple years involved here," Lyons said. "It's not impossible but it ain't gonna happen fast."

Some of the waste at SONGS sits in 50 canisters that are stacked horizontally in "dry storage," at an installation behind a seawall 27 feet high.

Another installation for the rest of the spent fuel is in the process of being constructed. The fuel now cooling in "wet storage" -- in a deep pool of water -- will eventually be moved to 73 thick, vertical casks.

Grecheck and Lyons said the waste at SONGS is safely stored.

"I know the processes the NRC goes through to license any of these facilities," Lyons said. "I know the processes the NRC goes through to license those casks ... They're just incredibly robust. I just do not foresee a problem. I've been to San Onofre. I don't think there's an issue."

What other activists say

Lyons would get plenty of argument from a host of activists living near SONGS.

Public Watchdogs, based in La Mesa, calls the plant the single biggest public health issue facing the residents of Southern California and the group's executive director, Charles Langley, called Monday's a defeat because Edison's storage plans remain in place.

"They're doing their best to put a pretty face on it, but the details are ugly," Langley said in a statement.

San Clemente resident Donna Gilmore, who edits a website critical of Edison and often focuses on the canisters storing the spent fuel, called the out-of-court settlement "a fantasy document."

"It's an illusion to think we're going to to be safe if (the waste) is at Palo Verde, even if they would take it," Gilmore said. "We're focusing on the wrong problem. We need this stuff safely stored no matter where it is."

Gilmore says the canisters may leak or crack and Edison should go out for bid for thick-walled casks. Edison officials insist the waste is safely stored.

The Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility criticized the plan, saying it would "require transporting the waste twice, once to the temporary location and then again to a permanent facility, essentially doubling the transport risk."

The group supports moving the waste within the premises of Camp Pendleton.

"It would address the issue of sea level rise," said Denise Duffield, the group's associate director. "One of the greatest risks associated with irradiated fuel is terrorism; it is hard to think of a better location to protect it (than) within a Marine base."

Critics of the settlement say it doesn't do enough to make sure Edison lives up to its end of the bargain. Aguirre and Severson disagree, saying Edison must consult with the plaintiffs when it comes to assembling the panel of experts and point to agreement's condition allowing the court to retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement.

The agreement also received a bad review from David Victor, the chairman of the SONGS Community Engagement Panel (CEP) that hosts meetings every three months about the progress of the plant's decommissioning.

"The CEP, the California delegation in Washington, Edison and many others are already looking at all viable options for moving the spent fuel out of here and have been doing that for years," Victor said in an email.

Victor, who said he was speaking for himself and not for the CEP, dismissed the Palo Verde option as "just theater" and pointed to the fact that Edison agreed to pay costs and attorneys' fees of $800,000 to Aguirre and Severson's firm.

Severson defended the payment, saying Citizens Oversight is a nonprofit and California law allows for prevailing parties to get their legal costs covered.

"Otherwise, no one would be able to afford a lawyer to try to affect public change," she said. "If you make a change, if you do something that's positive, then the law pays for it because it's for the public good."

Going forward

The move to put together the team of experts will begin quickly.

A request for proposal for qualified candidates must be delivered within 60 days and the panel must be retained within 90 days of receiving the proposals, meaning the panel will be assembled in five months.

The agreement calls for appointing experts who are authorities in engineering, radiation detection, nuclear waste siting and transportation. Likely candidates are expected to come from major universities, research institutions, national laboratories and the nuclear industry.

rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski

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