Anti-nuke movement in North County starts to stir

Nov 3 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Paul Sisson North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

Seeds sown by an anti-nuclear movement in San Clemente are beginning to sprout in North County, where a handful of citizens this month will ask the Solana Beach City Council to pass a resolution calling for the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

The move comes just a month after hundreds of activists in southern Orange County, spurred by the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in northeast Japan, unsuccessfully lobbied the San Clemente City Council to pass such an ordinance.

Solana Beach architect and urban designer Torgen Johnson said the same concerns about Fukushima pushed him to act in his own city. He is set to make a presentation Nov. 16 to the Solana Beach council.

"I don't consider myself an anti-nuclear activist," Johnson said. "I am a concerned citizen, and I see a need for a public discussion on this issue."

David Ott, Solana Beach's city manager, said he agreed to put Johnson's presentation on the council agenda because the Fukushima disaster has presented a new set of information about how radiation travels.

The March 11 disaster in Japan started with a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that knocked out safety systems at the Fukushima plant and eventually caused three of its six reactors to partly melt down, spewing radiation into the atmosphere.

Ott, a former fire chief and participant in regional emergency planning organizations, said it always makes sense to learn from such an incident, though he's not convinced that any council action is warranted.

"I think you should always be willing to listen," Ott said.

Most of the recent nuclear power debate has been fueled by a grass-roots organization called San Clemente Green, which in a series of public meetings urged the San Clemente to take a stand against the nuclear power plant.

Though the council stopped short of calling for San Onofre's shutdown, it unanimously passed a resolution asking the federal government for better solutions to problems such as long-term nuclear waste storage and for better studies of the seismic risk.

Johnson said he and a handful of other citizens, many of whom participated in the San Clemente meetings, will ask the Solana Beach council for a similar "close San Onofre" resolution.

To be clear, cities have no direct power to close the plant. At most, a resolution would express an opinion on the plant's continued existence. The power to close a licensed nuclear plant rests only with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But Johnson said he believes that city resolutions can serve an important purpose: If enough municipalities and their citizens take a stand, it will put pressure on federal officials to take action.

"There has got to be a bottom-up movement. It's not going to come from the top down," he said.

Ott said the 10-minute council presentation on Nov. 16 will be a simple information item. The council could decide to put the item on a future agenda to vote on a resolution, but Ott said that move is far from certain.

"I was very clear with him (Johnson) that they would have to persuade me with a lot more information that I would check into," Ott said.

Johnson said he intends to present information similar to what San Clemente Green presented to the San Clemente City Council, including the argument that San Onofre's 10-mile evacuation zone is much too small.

He cited a French study that showed increases in radiation on American shores attributed to Fukushima.

He said he and others also perceive a too-close relationship between Southern California Edison, which runs the plant, and the regulators who are in charge of making sure it is run safely.

Still, the concern over nuclear power in North County since the Fukushima disaster has been muted, compared with the outcry in San Clemente.

Roughly 70 people attended a meeting at the Oceanside Library in April focusing on concerns over nuclear power, less than a month after the Fukushima disaster.

By comparison, hundreds have turned out at meetings in San Clemente, hosted by San Clemente Green. The group now boasts 1,000 members, including 200 who joined in the past six months.

Ace Hoffman, a Carlsbad software designer who has long been one of San Onofre's most vocal critics, said he's not sure why North County's anti-nuclear movement has been slower to grow.

"Down here, we're just a little more fractured," he said.

Others had their own theories of why North County residents seem generally less concerned about San Onofre than San Clemente residents.

Many said proximity plays a large role. San Clemente is about two miles north of San Onofre; Oceanside is about 17 miles to the south.

But that's only one factor.

Oceanside City Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said socioeconomics might also play a part. She said that, these days, she gets calls from constituents about much more immediate matters: finding a job, paying for health care, surviving until the economy picks up.

"People have much more critical issues that they're ... having to deal with, like losing their homes and their jobs," Sanchez said.

Vista resident Rena Marrocco, who attended the April meeting at the library, agreed. She said unemployment and economic equality simply sit higher on the priority list of most local activists at the moment.

"If you have a lion chasing you, you're not going to worry about the campfire getting out of control and causing a forest fire. You're going to run away from the lion first," she said.

Another factor might be that the power plant sits on Camp Pendleton, a military base with strong ties to the Oceanside community.

"In San Clemente, they're much closer to the plant, and they're not tied nearly so closely to the base," said Rochelle Becker, executive director of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, a statewide nonprofit that has opposed various nuclear initiatives in California.

"Oceanside people, it seems like, are more tied to the military base, and I think they're people who tend to trust their government more than maybe they do further north."

Call staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087.