[UPDATED with Radiation Report OK'd:] Water Leak Shuts Down San Onofre Nuke Unit

​UPDATE, FEB. 23, 10:01 A.M.: The San Clemente City Council is to receive a staff report March 20 that should help city leaders decide whether more radiation monitoring should be done in the town 2 miles from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

Some residents have called for stepped-up checks in light of a recent leak, mishaps and degraded equipment reported at the Southern California Edison-operated nuclear power facility.

The council Tuesday night directed staff to detail in the pending report what kind of monitoring is done now in San Clemente.

And now for this that just popped into my head: SCE says not enough radiation leaked recently to be a health concern for people. Other officials say radiation from Japan's meltdown settled in Southern California but also poses no threat. How about when you combine both incidents?

I suspect the answer will be it's still negligible, less than you'd encounter washing your dog on a sunny day. Ah, well, free X-rays for all! 

UPDATE, FEB. 14, 9:55 P.M.: Know how it's going to be weeks before toxicology reports are in on Whitney Houston? Perhaps the same type of science-is-hard explanation accounts for the delay between November's ammonia leak at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) and government regulators just now coming out with a report blaming plant employees with failing to recognize degraded equipment. Not that such an excuse is comforting given the other recent leak, mishaps and degraded equipment reported at the Southern California Edison-operated nuclear power facility just south of Orange County.

"The failure to take adequate corrective actions for degraded plant equipment was a performance deficiency," according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) findings that deemed the deficiency "more than minor" because an emergency alert was issued.

It's also fair to note that the same report labels the actual problem that needed to be better corrected a "very low safety significance" that posed no danger to the public, although some workers were evacuated.

Critics, of course, want all such problems, evacuations and alerts passed along to the public, especially in places like San Clemente that hug up next to the plant. At least they can take solace in figuring the NRC will get to the bottom of this month's incidents . . . a few months from now.

Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

​UPDATE, FEB. 8, 5:59 P.M.: U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) has sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) seeking a comprehensive safety review of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in light of the recent leaks and mishaps at the plant. "I ask the NRC to thoroughly assess the conditions at the San Onofre plant to determine what further investigation and action is required at this time, and whether similar actions may be needed at other nuclear facilities," reads Boxer's letter to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko.

Besides leaks in tubes that led to the recent shutdown of Unit 3, which may have prompted radiation to seap into the atmosphere, as well as the subsequent inspection and discovery of unusual wear to similar tubes at Unit 2, which was closed for maintenance, Boxer's letter cited a SONGS worker falling into a pool of water laced with a small amount of radiation. It is feared the worker accidentally consumed some of that water, although he did not get sick.

She could have also brought up this event we reported last November:

• San Onofre Nuclear Plant "Non-Radioactive" Leak Prompts Evacuation

Boxer is not alone in her worries about SONGS, as residents in adjacent San Clemente asked their City Council this week to install sensors around town to monitor radiation levels.