“…The Biggest Nuclear Blunder Of All Time!”

By Brett Redmayne-Titley

“This is the biggest nuclear blunder of all time!” – Ray Lutz, Founder/Citizens’ Oversight.

A corruption of human conscience has permitted 3.6 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste to be put in thin-walled steel drums and buried forever – out of sight – in faulty concrete … one hundred feet away and inches above the high tide line of … the Pacific Ocean.

After Fukushima?!

Yes. The latest and perhaps most egregious American example of public health, safety, and local democracy being sacrificed maliciously to unseen corporate masters is ongoing in the courts and on the streets of San Diego County, California. The fight has begun anew on behalf of 8.7 million southern Californians who, thanks to media complicity, know little to nothing about another pending nuclear disaster at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), mere miles away. This is not the first episode in this saga, but the third: Public Good vs. Southern California Edison Company (Edison) and its allied minions of supposed public servants.

The inherent national problem in effecting localized legislation and/or regulations that protect the local community while countering corporate methods that maximize profit in spite of public safety, were showcased in the San Diego County Board of Supervisors chambers on Wed. May 10, 2017. The large, plush, mahogany-paneled hall was taken over on this day by the members of the California Coastal Commission (CCC), a state agency established in 1972 via state proposition 20 and made up of twelve reportedly unpaid voting members (six chosen from the general public and six appointed elected officials) whose votes are the final say on all commercial and residential projects anywhere along the state’s coast lines, rivers, lagoons, waterways and estuaries. This panel has been historically notorious for denying construction project permits and has been draconian in its requirements for same. Their decisions over the years have been duplicitous and political.

During the first round of the multi-year story that finally resulted in the forced closure of SONGS in 2013, the original two regulatory agencies involved then, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), were actually at all times the adversaries of public safety, but the best friend of Edison. This day, as Round Three unfolds, the state’s CCC is Edison’s newest BFF!

Beyond all reason and past public outrage about Edison’s proposed disposal of the SONGS radioactive waste, the CCC has already issued Edison a permit to do as they requested: just bury the shit! This method was of course the most inexpensive method of disposal for the extremely toxic, nuclear waste for Edison – public safety be damned. Conveniently the CCC permit approval provides the way for Edison to legitimize, if not legalize, their deliberate creation of their eventual radioactive damnation of millions of souls, while removing all legal and financial liability.

As seen in similar collusion nationally, these conspiracies to defraud the public are best kept secret. This proved to be true, since it was revealed by Citizens’ Oversight that there had been many surreptitious late night private meetings between Edison and state CCC members before the permit was ultimately issued without any public comment. Here, this day in San Diego is the big chance for that public comment.

In moments, however, thus would begin the biggest problem of this day’s public forum. A problem bigger than buried nuclear waste. A problem for California residents and their environment as well as a crime repeated too often in other national environmental disasters across America: You (the Public) …Do… Not… matter!

“Excuse me! …Excuse me! Would you mind paying attention?!” boomed former San Diego City Attorney, Mike Aguirre, from the podium while standing before the CCC members. “I’m speaking to you. It would be nice if you would listen!”

Aguirre is a pain in the ass; hawkish, straight talking, unafraid and vociferous – Edison’s worst nightmare. To many in San Diego he is one of the very few public champions. And … Aguirre does not go quietly!