SONGS Will Release Radioactive Effluent a Mile Offshore Tomorrow
Yep, you read that right. As crazy as it sounds, in a statement released yesterday on the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) decommissioning website, Southern California Edison (SCE) said that they will be doing a “liquid batch release” of 19,200 gallons of radioactive effluent and treated wastewater though pipes leading 1.1 miles offshore from the facility in the Pacific on Thursday, December 19.
So what is a “liquid batch release,” exactly? Well, according to SCE’s announcement, which you can (and should) read in its entirety here, “Liquid batch releases comprise a set volume of water from a specific tank, as opposed to continuous industrial wastewater releases. The water is placed in the tank; circulated through ion exchangers and filters to remove impurities; and then sampled prior to release to ensure it meets regulatory requirements.”
Obviously it’s quite discomforting to know that about 50 jacuzzies-worth of radioactive effluent is being released into our aquatic playground (not to mention a marine habitat home to untold sea life), but before you burn your San O State Beach parking pass and buy a waterproof Geiger counter, know that while the announcement may be disturbing, it’s actually just business as usual for SCE, as these types of releases have occurred with regularity since SONGS’s first reactor came online in 1968.
Again, from the announcement: “SCE has been safely cleaning and discharging these liquids for more than 50 years with no measurable impact on the environment. When San Onofre was operating, these were done frequently, sometimes daily. With the shutdown of the plant, they have dropped dramatically.”
A bit of a mixed bag, no? There’s nothing new about this process, and each year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires all nuclear plants to submit and publicly release reports on all of their effluent releases. What is new is that they’re announcing it ahead of time.
Until yesterday, the time, volume and contents of these “liquid batch” releases, as SCE calls them, were only discovered after the fact in these year-end reports. But back in March, at a California State Lands Commission hearing, SCE agreed (at the urging of Surfrider) to notify the public of these types of releases ahead of time as well as provide enhanced radiological and environmental monitoring.
SCE reports that this particular batch has a total radiological dose level of 0.00183 mrem, which is 0.0321 percent of what is deemed the annual safe dose limit for people. “This is well within their legal allowance set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has a maximum annual dose limit from liquid effluent of 3 mrem per unit [meaning 6 mrem total],” said Surfrider in their blog post about the release, which you can read here.
Transparency is obviously a positive thing, and while no one is likely getting in line to high-five the folks at SCE for letting us know when they’re dumping radioactive liquids into the ocean, at least we do know more details than before about how and when they are doing it. If those numbers truly are safe, then perhaps some will see it as just another day at San O. But something tells me the lineup at Old Man’s will be lightly attended tomorrow.