The latest price tag to decommission the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station will be the focus of a community meeting scheduled for Thursday evening in Oceanside.
The Community Engagement Panel, which was created to advise plant owners Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and other interests, will take up an estimate that the two decades-long process could cost $4.4 billion.
The new amount, up more than 30 percent from previous estimates of around $3.3 billion, was reported earlier this month.
How much of the costs of the shutdown, along with replacement power and other needs, will be borne by the utilities and how much by ratepayers has been the subject of many months of talks between companies, regulators and consumer watchdogs.
Thursday’s public meeting at Quantum Learning Network Conference Center, 1938 Avenida del Oro, starts at 6 p.m.
The nuclear plant on the northern San Diego County coastline has been idle since January 2012, when a small leak was discovered in a steam generator. No one was reported injured.
Subsequent investigations determined that the generators, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan and installed only a couple years earlier, were faulty. In June 2013, Edison shelved plans to restart the plant in favor of retiring the facility.
The panel is also expected to discuss a draft decommissioning plan and an environmental study of its potential impacts.
Other public meetings have been held regarding the plant’s closure, including one offering details of a settlement detailing which parties would bear the cost of shutting San Onofre down.
– City News Service
