Fullerton Observer: Scandals at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station put public at risk

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Two recent scandals confirm that public safety is not top priority of either the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or SoCal Edison as they lurch forward with a faulty engineering design for removing spent nuclear waste from cooling pools and loading into dry storage at the now shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. According to Charles Langley, executive director of PublicWatchdogs.org, salt from the Pacific Ocean will cause the thin-walled metal cans to fail quickly …

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission has no “Plan B” for a canister failure at San Onofre

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Dateline August 8, 2018 — During today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Webinar, (get the Public Watchdogs Video Capture Here) a top NRC  official admitted that the beachfront San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dump, which is owned and operated by Southern California Edison, has no backup plan for repairing or safely storing a damaged nuclear waste container. During the public  question-and-answer segment of the Webinar, Donna Gilmore, a…

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That metallic taste? It’s possible you’ve been irradiated. 

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That metallic taste in your mouth?  It could be brain damage.   People who surf  near the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) are rumored to occasionally report a metallic taste in their mouth while surfing. Southern California Edison (SCE), the owners of the shuttered nuke plant, use a system called “Dilute and Discharge,” to dump radioactive water from its spent nuclear fuel pools into…

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SCE to Restart Fuel Transfer Operations at San Onofre Nuclear Plant

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On July 15, 2019, Southern Califronia Edison announced that it would resume the transfer of spent nuclear fuel (i.e. lethally radioactive waste) at its beachfront nuclear waste dump located at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). The movement of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) was stopped for almost a year on August 3, 2018 when a 100,000 pound canister of SNF was nearly dropped 18 feet in what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) calls a “near-miss.” Southern California Edison worked closely with the NRC to keep this harrowing “near-miss” and an additional unreported “near-miss” on July 22, 2018, a secret from the public.

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7.1 Earthquake deepens fears of a nuclear release at failed San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

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San Diego, CA, July 12, 2019 – Last week, Southern California was hit by an earthquake with a 7.1 magnitude. The earthquake shook most of Southern California including  the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), where 3.6 million pounds of deadly nuclear waste is in the process of being buried  in Holtec canisters 108 ft. from the ocean. It remains unclear if SoCal Edison has an…

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Did Holtec “persuade” federal employees with cash incentives?

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  The next time you hear a government employee or government contractor defending Holtec International, or awarding the company a juicy federal contract, keep in mind that the employee who made the decision may have benefited from gifts of cash or entertainment from Holtec.  At least that’s what is alleged in this blockbuster story by the Philadelphia Inquirer.         Kris Singh, CEO of…

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejects request for full-time safety inspector at SONGS

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) bureaucrats have spurned a request by a sitting United States Congressman to put a full-time safety inspector onsite during the transfer of spent nuclear fuel at the accident-prone San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dump. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has rejected a written request from Congressman Mike Levin to deploy a full-time NRC inspector at the San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dump, which is…

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New Government Accountability Office Report highlights failure of NRC to protect public against “dirty bombs”

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The non-partisan congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a troubling report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s failure to protect the public from “Dirty Bombs”  The GAO was chartered by Congress to investigate and audit how  taxpayer dollars are spent by federal agencies. This report is a bombshell, yet it has been largely ignored since its publication last April The new report is titled COMBATING NUCLEAR…

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Radioactive emergency sirens at San Onofre are being removed … but that doesn’t mean there is no risk.

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Southern California Edison has announced that it is removing all of its radiation alert sirens from nearby communities that are close the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).  Now that the plant is closed, 3.6 million pounds of deadly radioactive nuclear waste are being buried 108 feet from the beach.  When the beachfront nuclear waste dump is completed, it will contain 72 giant, thin-walled canisters…

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NRC June 3 2019 Webinar now available at PublicWatchdogs.org

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The June 3, 2019 Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Webinar is now available at the Public Watchdogs YouTube Channel. The NRC has promised that it will publish a video of today’s deeply disturbing Webinar, but we doubt they”ll get around to publishing it for several weeks, so we have published it here. The webinar was  is supposed to reassure the public that the NRC is actually doing…

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NRC refuses to fine Holtec for violating Federal nuclear safety laws, underscoring its complete failure to protect the public

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Holtec had two violations, the NRC said: failure to establish adequate design control measures of components important to safety, and failure to perform evaluations before making changes. A base civil penalty of $36,250 was considered and rejected due to Holtec’s “prompt and comprehensive” corrective actions, which outraged some critics. “The failure by the NRC to fine Holtec for breaking the law shows that it isn’t serious about protecting the public’s safety,” said Charles Langley, executive director of Public Watchdogs, in a statement.

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NRC “enforcement decision” represents a miserable failure to regulate.

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Today, the nonprofit public safety advocacy group, Public Watchdogs, reacted to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission email touting an “enforcement decision,” at the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station’s beachfront nuclear waste dump, by calling the agency a “miserable failure.” Breaking news: April 26, 2019, 3:50PM NRC “Enforcement Action” against Holtec shows a complete failure to regulate USA’s  nuclear waste stockpile.   Today, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced…

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