Nuke Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and abroad and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear-free world. Here’s our March 2017 report:

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

San Onofre nuke owner wants to put lots of high-level nuclear waste 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean.

On March 20 Surfer Magazine reported:

“They’re going to put nuclear waste 100 feet from the water.”

The report refers to the place utility Southern California Edison plans to bury mass quantities of highly radioactive substances from its San Onofre nuke plant, which shut down in 2013. Millions of people live within 50 miles of the site. This nuke waste consists of a lot of long lived lethal substances like plutonium, which remains deadly for thousands of years.

Edison’s plan is to remove this radwaste from pools in the closed down plants, where it has to be constantly cooled or it could lead to a meltdown, and put it in coffin-like containers called dry casks, then bury them on the shoreline of this famous Southern California surfing spot sung about in the Beach Boys hit “Surfing USA.”

The Surfer Magazine report continued:

“Satellite images taken earlier this month reveal the reality Southern Californians had hoped to avoid: just 100 feet from the Pacific nuclear storage facilities are being built to deal with the waste for San Onofre.”

Local resident John Gallagher told San Diego media outlet KUSI,

“I’m 100 percent against any nuclear waste being buried in this area, and to put it in a place that is 100 feet from the ocean. It affects anybody who wants to use the water.”

And former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre added,

“Those containers are meant to last 20 years. They plan to keep them there 35-50 years. The containers, if they erode, there’s no way to get them out of there, so you have to encase them. The containers are so large, there’s no way to move them unless you build special railing cars.”

The San Onofre shoreline thereabouts are sacred lands of the Acjamen, Jacaneno and Luisneno indigenous people. On March 26, San Clemente Green reported, the Sacred Places Institute For Indigenous Peoples held a gathering near San Onofre to “celebrate and remember their 300-year historic village” and “to help prevent it from becoming another ecological disaster.”

Sources: Surfer Magazine, surfer.com; KUSI, kusi.com; San Clemente Green, sanclementegreen.org

UPDATE: Edison has agreed to enter settlement talks.  If the settlement process is not successful, then it may come back to the litigation process.

Massachusetts nuke to shut down in two years.

On March 1 the Cape Cod Times reported: “Entergy takes steps towards Pilgrim shutdown.”

The Pilgrim nuke on Cape Cod in Massachusetts is owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Co., the nation’s second-largest owner and operator of nuke plants. The 44-year-old Pilgrim nuke has a troubled history and is rated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission as one of the US’s worst nuke plants.

The Cape Cod Times continued,

“Entergy has taken the initial step toward preparing for Pilgrim’s (permanent) shutdown in mid 2019.”

The Times also reported

“Heather Lightner, president of Concerned Neighbors of Pilgrim said,” ‘Pilgrim. like anything else mechanical, has a limited lifespan. It’s time for Pilgrim to shut down for good.”

US nukes were designed to operate for only 40 years.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts legislature has “proposed a bill that would require that the state get 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.”

“With officials in Washington, D.C. threatening to roll back clean energy and policies, it’s time for states to step up,” said Ben Hellerstein, state director of Environment Massachusetts, a green group helping to push the bill’s passage.

Sources: Cape Cod Times, capecodtimes.com; e360.yale.edu