The San Onofre Community Engagement Panel (CEP) will receive an update from Southern California Edison regarding the status of spent fuel transfer operations and discuss the process for resuming fuel loading at the San Onofre nuclear plant. Fuel transfers have been on hold since the Aug. 3 canister-loading incident. The CEP quarterly meeting is scheduled for Wednesday in Oceanside.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced that SCE can safely resume transfer of spent nuclear fuel from wet storage to passive dry storage. This is a key step in packaging the fuel for eventual transportation to an off-site facility licensed by the federal government. SCE suspended fuel transfers at San Onofre following the event last August in which a canister became wedged within the transfer cask while being downloaded into its Cavity Enclosure Container (CEC) on the dry storage pad. SCE, along with its contractor, instituted significant corrective actions following a comprehensive review of the incident.

The ultimate decision on when fuel transfer operations will resume will be made following a careful review of operational readiness by SCE and its contractor. SCE will continue to provide timely updates to the community and stakeholders. The regulatory commission scheduled a public webinar for Monday to discuss its determination that SCE can safely resume fuel transfers.

The regular quarterly meeting will be from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the QLN Conference Center, 1938 Avenida Del Oro, Oceanside. Staffed information booths will be open from 4:30-5:30 p.m. There will be a public comment period, and the meeting will be livestreamed via songscommunity.com.

SCE, majority owner of the San Onofre nuclear plant, announced in June 2013 that it had retired San Onofre Units 2 and 3 and had begun the process to decommission the facility. SCE has established core principles of safety, stewardship and engagement to guide decommissioning.

For more information about San Onofre, visit songscommunity.com and follow us on Twitter: @SCE_SONGS.

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.