A recent out-of-court settlement in which Edison committed to “commercially reasonable” efforts to move more than 3.5 million pounds of nuclear waste generated by the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station beats the alternative of inaction, barely. Under the settlement with the Citizens’ Oversight group, Edison will upgrade inspection and maintenance of canisters containing the nuclear waste and spend $4 million to hire experts to find a site and map out a potential move. Edison, the principal owner of San Onofre, vowed to pursue specific sites, including one in Texas that stores low-level radioactive waste now and one in New Mexico that appears to have local support. A crucial detail is San Diego County Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes can step in to enforce the settlement.

In the meantime, some of the nuclear waste will continue to be stored at San Onofre in 50 canisters in “dry storage,” protected by a 27-foot seawall. The rest of the spent fuel, which is now cooling in a deep container of water, will in time be moved from “wet storage” to 73 casks, also at San Onofre.

This deal was instantly derided by critics who consider it crazy to store so much waste so close to the Pacific Ocean, where earthquakes and tsunamis could cause a Fukushima-style disaster. But in the big picture, until the federal government gets its act together and revives a plan to build a nuclear waste depository in Yucca Mountain in a remote corner of Nevada, a disappointing deal that could accomplish much — or nothing — seems the best San Onofre’s neighbors can expect. This is pathetic, given that the nuclear waste issue has been debated since the nuclear plant opened in 1968. But it is a sad reality.



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