SCE, Communities Near San Onofre Removing Long-Retired Emergency Sirens
June 26 2019 - 12:27PM
Business Wire
Utility crews will begin Monday depowering the 50 community
alert sirens once required for operation of the San Onofre nuclear
plant. The sirens are located within a 10-mile radius of the plant
in the communities of San Clemente, Dana Point, San Juan
Capistrano, unincorporated Orange County, the Camp Pendleton Marine
base and on state park lands.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, along with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, determined in 2015 the sirens were
unnecessary because accident scenarios at the defueled nuclear
plant can no longer exceed Environmental Protection Agency
protective action values that recommend evacuation or sheltering in
place.
While the reactors at San Onofre were operating, the sirens
would only have been activated during the two highest emergency
levels, known as a site-area and a general emergency. Neither can
occur at San Onofre now that the reactors are retired. In the more
than 39 years that the sirens were in service, they were never
activated due to an emergency at San Onofre.
“Although emergency planning requirements are changing with the
elimination of almost all accident scenarios, we continue to
maintain a robust emergency planning and preparedness program,”
said Kelli Gallion, SCE’s senior manager for Emergency Planning at
San Onofre. “We thank our local community partners for working with
us on the siren removal process.”
Local communities were given the option of maintaining the
sirens or poles for their own use. While none are keeping the
actual siren function, some jurisdictions will be keeping the
physical infrastructure. Camp Pendleton, for instance, will use the
siren hardware as part of its public address system. In other
communities, the poles on which the sirens were attached will
remain for street lighting or to support communication or video
infrastructure. The three sirens located on California State Parks
land will be removed and the areas will be served by the adjacent
communities and Camp Pendleton.
See below for more information on how communities will use any
remaining pole infrastructure:
San Clemente – 19 sirens: San Clemente will retain five
poles to support existing streetlights and infrastructure. The city
has an active Emergency Planning and Preparedness program with
details available here.
San Juan Capistrano – 9 sirens: San Juan Capistrano will
be retaining two of the poles to support existing streetlights and
infrastructure. The city maintains a comprehensive Emergency
Management program and encourages residents to learn more about
these efforts here.
Dana Point – 8 sirens: Dana Point is keeping seven of the
eight poles installed by SCE and is actively looking for a new
system that will provide the city with additional siren and
messaging capabilities and allow for clear verbal messaging. The
system would be used to disseminate information regarding
disasters, hazards or public announcements, as well as providing
systemwide and individual siren control for disbursement of
specific information to specific areas of the city.
About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California
Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a
population of approximately 15 million via 5 million customer
accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central,
Coastal and Southern California.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190626005645/en/
Media Contact: John Dobken, (626) 302-2255
Edison (NYSE:EIX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Edison (NYSE:EIX)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024