San Onofre - Unit 1

1.0 Site Identification

Type of Site:	Power Reactor Facility
Location:	San Clemente, CA
License No.:	DPR-13
Docket No.:	50-206
License Status:	DECON
Project Manager:	Amy Snyder

2.0 Site Status Summary

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), operated by Southern California Edison (SCE) is approximately 100 km (60 mi) south of Los Angeles, 6.5 km (4 mi) south of San Clemente, CA. It is located between I-5 and the Pacific Ocean, within the boundary of the Camp Pendleton military reserve. The site originally comprised three nuclear power plants. Unit 1 commenced operation in 1968, and shut down in 1992. Units 2 and 3 permanently ceased operations in June 2013. Dismantlement of Unit 1 is essentially complete. The turbine building was removed and the licensee completed reactor pressure vessel internal segmentation and cutup; however, the licensee was unable to make arrangements for shipping the reactor pressure vessel to a disposal facility because of the size and weight of the vessel and shipping package. The licensee is making plans to ship the vessel offsite during the decommissioning activities for Units 2 and 3 because the radioactivity has decayed to a level that allows it to be treated as low level waste.

SONGS-1 was a Westinghouse 3-loop pressurized water reactor constructed by Bechtel and rated at 1347 MWthermal . It began commercial operation on January 1, 1968, and ceased operation on November 30, 1992. Defueling was completed on March 6, 1993. On December 28, 1993, NRC approved the Permanently Defueled Technical Specifications. On November 3, 1994, SCE submitted a Proposed Decommissioning Plan to place SONGS-1 in SAFSTOR until the shutdown of Units 2 and 3. On December 15, 1998, following a change in NRC decommissioning regulations, SCE submitted a post shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR) for SONGS-1, to commence DECON in 2000. SCE actively decommissioned the facility, and most of the structures and equipment have been removed and sent to a disposal facility. The NRC issued a license amendment in February 2010 releasing the off-shore portions of the Unit 1 cooling intake and outlet pipes in place, under the Pacific Ocean seabed, for unrestricted use. The fuel from Unit 1 was transferred to Phase 1 of the independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI). In 2015, the ISFSI was expanded onto the area previously occupied by Unit 1 in order to store all Unit 2 and Unit 3 spent fuel. SCE completed transferring all of the nuclear fuel to dry storage in 2020.

The Unit 1 Reactor Pressure Vessel was transported via rail and then highway to the Energy Solutions disposal facility in Clive, Utah. The shipment left May 24, 2020 from San Onofre and arrived at the disposal facility on July 14, 2020.

3.0 Major Technical or Regulatory Issues

The PSDAR states all equipment and structures from Unit 1 will be removed from the site at the time of license termination, but SCE has stated it may reconsider this later, and possibly leave some of the below-grade structures in place. For now, SCE has elected to leave the below-grade portions of the turbine building in place after grouting expansion joints and embedded pipes. Because SCE has not submitted an LTP for this unit, there is not an NRC-approved survey plan or residual concentration limits. Therefore, it is not known if the surveys done on these areas prior to grouting will meet NRC requirements for final status surveys at the time of the request for license termination. Current survey data may not support this option, in which case additional surveys, e.g. of the embedded piping, may be necessary.

4.0 Estimated Date For Closure

Calendar year 2032