Radioactive Scrap from San Onofre Nuke Plant Prepares for Utah Trip

Contractors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station are preparing to haul a lightly contaminated 750,000-pound piece of the plant's old steam generator to a waste site in Utah.

The thick, tubular piece—twice as tall as a man—contains hundreds of tiny pipes through which radioactive steam from the reactor core circulated in a sealed loop. Nonradioactive water inside would hit the white-hot coils and instantly turn into steam, which was collected in the other, bulbous half of the steam generator, said plant spokesman Gil Alexander.

Workers sliced off the bulbous piece to be used as scrap metal; it was never touched by radioactive water.

The radiation levels on the generator piece are 5 to 6 millirems, Alexander said. For perspective, if you were to stand 6 feet from the piece for one hour, you would receive as much radiation as if you had a dental X-ray, Alexander said.

The U.S. Department of Transportation allows materials emitting up to 10 millirems on the country’s highways.

Because there is no off-the-shelf truck or transport vehicle powerful enough to haul the generator piece to Utah, contractors are building a specialty carriage on old Route 101, a half mile south of the plant, Alexander said.

The generator piece is painted with a thick coat of blue to prevent pieces of steel from chipping or flaking off.

Three semi-trucks will haul the carriage—one in front and two in the back—at 15 mph. The journey to the dump site in Utah is expected to take three weeks.

After the generator piece is deposited, Alexander said, the carriage will be disassembled and carried back to San Onofre on flatbed trucks, where it will be reassembled for the second of .

Alexander said the generator piece will head out within a couple of weeks. The date and exact route will not be publicized, but he confirmed that the piece will not travel through Orange County.

The generator pieces are left from the

Alexander said all four new steam generators are working well.

Editors Note: Because of a reporting error, a previous version of this article misstated the number of weeks the trip to Utah would take.