San Diego's San Onofre Nuclear Station To Dump Radioactive Matter Into Pacific Ocean To Kick Off Memorial Day Weekend

May 21, 2020

As if things weren't dire enough between COVID-19 and the constant Tijuana sewage spills, on Friday, May 22, to kick off Memorial Day Weekend 2020, the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station will release 21,420 gallons of non-radiological and radiological matter into the Pacific Ocean as part of a planned "Liquid Batch Release".

"Like any industrial site, San Onofre has permits to discharge operational wastewater into the ocean," reads the Liquid Batch Releases notice published 48-hours prior to the scheduled discharge. "These discharges include non-radiological and radiological releases. The non-radiological releases, such as sewage, meet the stringent criteria of our National Discharge Pollutant Elimination System permit, as implemented by the State Water Resources Control Board. SCE's license with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission governs radiological releases. In both cases, the wastewater is cleaned-up and highly diluted before release to the ocean via discharge ports that are more than a mile offshore from San Onofre." 

The question that immediately comes to mind: Why would the San Onofre overlords choose to release radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean for 4 hours on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, during a global pandemic mind you, when the county is just beginning to reopen and people will most certainly be flocking to the water?!? What kind of lunatics are making these decisions?

For more information, visit songscommunity.com/stewardship/environmental-monitoring-around-san-onofre/liquid-batch-releases. We reached out to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and all members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors for comment and will update this post if we receive any responses. We urge fellow San Diego's to contact them as well. Emails are copied below for convenience.

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station - [email protected]
Supervisor Greg Cox - [email protected]
Supervisor Dianne Jacob - [email protected]
Supervisor Kristin Gaspar - [email protected]
Supervisor Nathan Fletcher - [email protected]
Supervisor Jim Desmond - [email protected]