For more than a decade, tens of thousands of pounds of spent nuclear fuel have sat in steel-and-concrete canisters on a stretch of San Diego County coastline, a few hundred feet from crashing waves and just down the road from Camp Pendleton. Now, Rep. Mike Levin says he has a path — though still a distant one — toward finally moving that waste somewhere else.
Speaking last week from a bluff overlooking the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, the Democratic congressman, who represents parts of San Diego and Orange counties, laid out his latest push to get the fuel off the beach for good.
“Since I’ve been in Congress, getting this spent nuclear fuel off our coast has been one of my top priorities,” Levin said, with the decommissioned plant’s twin domes and the Pacific Ocean behind him. “I have been in this fight for eight years, fighting the status quo of inaction on spent nuclear fuel.”
Levin is backing a federal plan to establish what are being called Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses — facilities in willing host communities that would recycle portions of the spent fuel and safely store what remains. In return, those communities would see new jobs and investment tied to the project.
The U.S. Department of Energy has said such campuses could draw substantial private investment, expand domestic manufacturing capacity, and generate thousands of well-paying jobs in the regions that take them on. So far, Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Idaho have expressed interest in hosting one.
The approach mirrors efforts already underway in Finland and Canada, where nuclear waste sites have moved forward only with the buy-in of nearby communities, according to a report released by Levin’s office. Finland, notably, is on track to begin permanent nuclear waste disposal as soon as next year.
Levin believes similar facilities could be up and running in the United States by the late 2030s — and he wants San Onofre’s waste at the front of the line.
The plant stopped generating power in 2013 after a newly installed steam generator malfunctioned, rendering it inoperable. Decommissioning began in 2020, and since then crews have removed roughly 700 million tons of material from the site. The spent fuel itself has since been transferred from cooling pools into dry storage containers that remain on the bluff above the beach, Levin said.
What’s missing is a long-term, permanent home for that waste. A previous federal effort to establish one collapsed amid intense public opposition.
“The federal government still hasn’t done what it pledged to do all the way back in 1998, and so communities like ours have been left holding the fuel,” Levin said.
That 1998 commitment pointed to Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which the federal government had designated as the nation’s permanent nuclear waste repository. The Obama administration scrapped the project in 2010 after years of pushback from environmental groups, local residents and tribal nations.
With no permanent site in operation, San Onofre’s spent fuel has remained in place — stored along an active coastline, near seismic fault lines, and adjacent to a major military base, all factors that raise concerns about its vulnerability to earthquakes, tsunamis or other threats.
To address those risks, Levin has introduced the Spent Fuel Prioritization Act, co-sponsored by San Diego Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and Orange County Republican Rep. Young Kim. The bill would prioritize the removal of waste from sites like San Onofre that combine high seismic risk, dense surrounding populations and national security concerns. It currently awaits action in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to Levin’s 2026 report on the plant.
Transportation remains another hurdle. Levin said a newly engineered rail system, known as the Atlas Railcar System, is expected to complete testing next year and carry out the first shipment of spent fuel — from a site in Virginia to Idaho. The Atlas is a 12-axle railcar outfitted with sensors and monitoring technology capable of hauling nearly half a million pounds of nuclear material, according to the Department of Energy. Developing the railcar took a decade and cost roughly $33 million.
Levin has introduced additional legislation aimed at creating a federal nuclear waste administration, extending the required lifespan of storage canisters from 40 to 100 years, and strengthening public input and safety oversight at plants undergoing decommissioning.
“I will not declare victory on this,” Levin said, “until the last canister has left San Onofre.”
Original source: CalMatters
