SCE, Local Communities, to Continue Emergency Preparedness Partnership

ROSEMEAD, Calif., June 3, 2020 — Southern California Edison and five local government agencies will continue their longstanding collaborative emergency preparedness activities related to the San Onofre nuclear plant through an extended agreement. The five jurisdictions are the counties of Orange and San Diego, and the cities of San Clemente, Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano. The county boards of supervisors and city councils approved the new agreement at their respective meetings yesterday.

The memorandum of understanding outlines the responsibilities of each participant regarding emergency preparedness. Overall, the potential for radiological events at San Onofre has been significantly reduced since the plant was retired in 2013. The new agreement reflects this reduced risk status.

“After all the spent nuclear fuel is in dry storage this summer, San Onofre will be primarily an industrial deconstruction site for the next eight years,” said Doug Bauder, SCE vice president and chief nuclear officer. “We value our longstanding relationships with the local jurisdictions and maintaining our association with our local first responders for the long term is important to us and to the community.”

Through this agreement SCE underscored the benefits of its strong partnerships with emergency responders around the plant. The agreement will provide the five local jurisdictions more than $12.6 million for the eight-year deconstruction period through 2029, and more than $9.9 million for the 20-year period through 2049, by which time spent nuclear fuel could potentially be removed from SONGS. However, support will continue until the spent fuel is actually relocated to an offsite, federally licensed facility.

To that end, the local jurisdictions will actively work with SCE to obtain priority removal of spent nuclear fuel from the San Onofre site to an offsite interim storage or permanent disposal facility.

The full memorandum of understanding is available here.

For more information about San Onofre, visit songscommunity.com and follow us on Twitter (@SCE_SONGS) and Facebook (@SONGScommunitypage).

About Southern California Edison

An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of approximately 15 million via 5 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California. 

Media Contact: John Dobken, (626) 302-2255