10/23/08
DIABLO CANYON – It's a victory for PG&E, but a defeat for the group that's waged war on nuclear waste at Diablo Canyon.
On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the okay to a plan to store spent fuel at the facility.
Mothers for Peace, a group of activists on the Central Coast, has been fighting the plan since 2002. They've wanted more research to be done and have questioned if the storage system is safe from terror attacks.
The group had previously won a federal court ruling that forced the NRC to consider its arguments.
In Thursday's three-to-one vote, however, the NRC ruled no more study is necessary.
PG&E plans to move forward with the storage system. It's called dry cask storage, which means the waste will be moved from the cooling pools, which are filling up, to big containers above the ground.
NRC staff members say they studied plausible attack scenarios. They concluded even the worst-case scenarios would result in such a low dose of radiation, it wouldn't cause health problems for the people who live near the plant.
"Today's ruling actually gives people more of a sense of security the NRC has looked into this we do have a very robust, very sound, very safe system for storing our used fuel until the national repository opens," said Swanson.
Jane Swanson, the spokeswoman for Mothers for Peace, says the group is not giving up. With the support of one commissioner and the backing of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, they plan to continue their fight.
More than 50,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel is piling up at nuclear reactors nationwide. The waste is already in dry storage at 47 power plant sites.
