Commentary: Local action against fuel rods is good start

A 2014 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office asserts that spent nuclear fuel is “an extremely harmful substance if not managed properly” and that “if its intense radioactivity . . . were released by a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, it could contaminate the environment with radiation.”

The Laguna Beach City Council has taken an important step by asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to see that the spent fuel at the closed power plant at San Onofre is moved to a safer location as soon as possible. Village Laguna is committed to helping raise awareness of this threat to our homes and lives in the hope of spurring federal action.

The nation’s spent nuclear fuel is stored at 75 sites in 33 states and amounts to 72,000 metric tons, according to the report. Disposal of it was made a federal responsibility in 1982, and a repository was to be in operation by 1998. The site considered, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, was declared unworkable in 2009, the report states.

In 2012, according to the report, a blue ribbon commission recommended that Congress create an organization dedicated to managing spent nuclear fuel and that the approach to sitting storage facilities be “consent-based.” This is where things stand today.

The speakers at a panel discussion held in San Juan Capistrano last month made it clear that efforts to deal with the problem at the federal level are at an impasse. Brought together by a Washington think tank called the Bipartisan Policy Center at the request of Southern California Edison’s San Onofre community engagement panel, they included a UC professor of nuclear engineering, an attorney from the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former utility commissioner.

They agreed that there was little hope of congressional action on the spent-fuel problem and a lack of political will to face up to it.

The consensus of the panel was that the way ahead is to work toward state and regional solutions and the changes in the law that would permit them. The GAO report called attention to the need to inform the public about spent-fuel management issues.

We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and pretend this threat does not exist. We encourage Lagunans to write their representatives at the local, state and federal levels at https://www.lagunabeachcity.net/living/representatives.asp asking for action on the management problem and to urge their friends to do the same.

A groundswell of public opinion may be needed to force Congress to act, and it can start here.

JOHANNA FELDER is president of Village Laguna.