Suit filed over San Onofre nuclear waste

A permit to bury radioactive waste from the retired San Onofre reactors on low-lying land next to the Pacific Ocean has been challenged in court by a San Diego consumer advocacy group.

The California Coastal Commission approved a permit in October to bury nuclear waste in concrete bunkers within 125 feet of a sea wall and the beach at the closed San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Diego County.

A lawsuit filed by Citizens Oversight in Superior Court in San Diego accuses the commission of neglecting its obligation to protect the coastline and marine life from hazardous waste, and for failing to require that nuclear plant operator Southern California Edison show that it had exhausted other reasonable alternatives.

“No reasonable person would have granted a permit,” the lawsuit states, citing the storage site’s vulnerability to flooding and erosion.

A Coastal Commission representative declined to comment Tuesday because the commission hadn’t been officially notified. Edison also declined to comment.

The lawsuit asserts that the commission failed to provide a fair hearing on Edison’s waste-storage permit by engaging in private communications with the investorowned utility. Edison hired a consultant that briefed several commissioners individually about its permit application in the days before the final public vote.

The lawsuit also contends that the commission was swayed by Edison’s agreement to indemnify the agency and its voting members against any future legal liabilities.

The suit seeks to revoke the waste storage permit until Edison obtain a storage location farther from the coast.

Nearly 2,700 spent fuel assemblies remain inside cooling pools adjacent to the San Onofre reactors, which were retired in June 2013 because of a botched generator replacement project.