Decommissioning Timeline

California Coastal Commission unanimously approves Coastal Development Permit, clearing the way for dismantlement and decontamination to proceed.

SCE issues Notice of Deconstruction to 12,000 residents living within a 5-mile radius of SONGS.

California Department of Public Health - Radiologic Health Branch publishes data from the SONGS ISFSI radiation monitoring system for the first time.

The Unit 1 reactor pressure vessel arrives at its disposal site in Utah. "From start to finish, the project was done with safety as the top priority," said Doug Bauder, SONGS chief nuclear officer.

Southern California Edison’s two-year project to expand the Wheeler North Reef off the Orange County coast comes to a close. Initially started in 2008, the Wheeler North Reef was constructed as a mitigation measure related to the operation of SONGS to help increase the number of residential fish in the area.

California Coastal Commission unanimously approves Inspection and Maintenance Program for the Holtec UMAX spent fuel storage system at SONGS.

All spent nuclear fuel at San Onofre is placed in dry storage. The site switches to an "ISFSI-only" license that essentially means the nuclear focus is reduced to the spent fuel storage installation. The majority of San Onofre becomes an industrial deconstruction site, with critical functions, including oversight, focused on the safe dismantlement of plant structures.

The first railcar laden with dismantlement debris leaves SONGS. The first shipment included roughly 82,000 lbs. of asbestos-containing material.

Crews remove the Unit 3 generator rotor for shipment to the Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Michigan. The heavy lift is performed safely. This rotor joins its sister from Unit 2 at the Fermi plant.

Southern California Edison distributed a three-volume set of plans supporting the offsite relocation of the spent nuclear fuel currently stored at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The strategies are outlined in the Action Plan, Strategic Plan and Conceptual Transportation Plan.

To further build momentum toward commercially reasonable offsite storage or disposal solutions, and to urge the federal government to meet its legal obligations, SCE and the counties of Orange and San Diego announced the formation of a stakeholder coalition, Action for Spent Fuel Solutions Now.

Building demolition begins at SONGS. The K-60 warehouse, along with the K-40/50 building are the first to come down. In the months that follow, additional perimeter buildings would be dismantled, including the Units 2 and 3 diesel generator buildings. By the end of the year, 26 structures would be demolished by contractors.

The SONGS team is honored with a Top Innovative Practice award from the Nuclear Energy Institute for our spent nuclear fuel canister repair method using a metallic overlay.

This month marked the end of an era for SONGS with the final demolition of what was affectionately known as the Queen Mary, the two top levels of the four-story AWS office complex that reminded folks of the famous ship’s upper decks. The AWS housed many critical work groups at SONGS, as well as the cafeteria, huge vaults for important documents, drawings and procedures and a rooftop tent for large employee meetings.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors passes a resolution of support for the Action for Spent Fuel Solutions Now coalition, joining the boards of Orange and San Diego counties in doing so.

SCE and its decommissioning contactor, SONGS DecommissioningSolutions, close out the year demolishing 27 of 62 structures. More than 1,300 waste shipments have been made, encompassing nearly 64,000,000 lbs. of material.