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88,000 tons of radioactive waste – and nowhere to put it - YouTube
Channel: Verge Science
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(pulsing music)
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- [Narrator] If you
were an evil mastermind,
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and you said "Where
could I put nuclear waste
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that would really scare the
bejeezus out of people?"
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It's hard to think of
one that's worse than
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San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
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(waves crashing)
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- [Rachel Becker] This is the San Onofre
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Nuclear Generating Station,
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just outside of San Clemente, California.
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It's been closed since 2013,
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but it's operators are
struggling with a problem
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that most plants in America share;
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all the spent nuclear
fuel it ever generated
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is still trapped.
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Right here.
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(Geiger counter ticking)
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So the thing you notice immediately
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about this plant is its location.
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You've got the Pacific Ocean right there,
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you've got the Interstate Five
Freeway just over that hill,
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you've got L.A. and San
Diego within 75 miles,
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and 8.5 million people living in the area,
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and smack-dab in the center of it all
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is tons and tons of nuclear waste.
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Back when it was running,
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the San Onofre plant could power
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1.4 million homes at a time.
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But, now the reactors are retired,
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and the plants operator,
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Southern California Edison,
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is preparing to dismantle it completely.
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So to see this whole multi-billion
dollar process firsthand,
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we took a tour of the power plant.
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Our guide is Ron Pontes,
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manager of Environmental
Decommissioning Strategy,
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and except for all of the security,
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the seagulls, and us, the
place is pretty empty.
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- [Ron Pontes] Behind us
is the containment building
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for Unit Three.
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Inside that building is the
nuclear steam supply system,
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which consists of the
reactor, steam generators,
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pressure riser, and reactor coolant pumps.
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- [Rachel] That's where
the fuel would normally go,
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bundles of hollow metal
rods that are packed
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with little pellets of uranium.
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Inside the reactor,
uranium atoms split apart
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in a chain reaction that produces heat.
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- [Ron] That's where the heat is generated
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that is transmitted to
the steam generators
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to make steam to turn the turbines,
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which makes electricity for our customers.
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- [Rachel] Only, this plant hasn't
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produced electricity for years,
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ever since one of the steam generators
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sprung a leak.
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- [Newscaster] It is a done deal.
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SoCal Edison has gotten
tired of waiting to reopen
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the troubled San Onofre power plant,
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so today, the utility announced it is
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shutting it down for good.
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- [Rachel] Now, the plant operators
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need to decontaminate the site,
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demolish the structures,
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and generally tear
everything to the ground.
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First though, they have to do something
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with all that fuel.
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Fresh fuel isn't actually
all that radioactive.
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It gets more radioactive
after it spends time
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in a nuclear reactor,
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because that chain reaction
that generates heat,
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it also makes other radioactive atoms,
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like cesium-137,
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strontium-90,
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and plutonium-239.
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About half of the cesium
and strontium decay
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in 30 or so years.
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The plutonium? That takes longer.
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Like 24,000 years longer.
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These days, the spent
fuel starts cooling off
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in cement-lined pools of water.
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After a few years, it's
moved to dry storage,
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air-cooled steel containers
inside massive concrete blocks.
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Eventually, they'll move all
the waste into those blocks.
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They're lower maintenance,
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and they're supposed to withstand floods,
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earthquakes, tornadoes,
airplane collisions,
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you name it.
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- [Ron] It requires no
pumps or active systems
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to support it.
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As long as we keep this inlet and outlet
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free of any debris or blockage,
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the system will continue to operate.
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- [Rachel] That's good,
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because that's where the spent fuel is
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gonna have to stay for
the foreseeable future.
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- [Ron] What we are faced with
here is a national problem.
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Every commercial plant in the States is
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faced with the same problem.
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There's nothing to do with the fuel,
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because the federal
government's not performing.
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- [Rachel] San Onofre's first
reactor powered up in 1968,
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at the height of nuclear energy's prime,
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and the height of the energy industry
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selling America on how
safe and powerful it was.
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- [Advertiser] The heat
output of one pound of uranium
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can equal the heat output
of 70 tons of coal.
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- [Rachel] There were
promises that one day,
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atomic energy would be too cheap to meter;
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that it would power the
world by the year 2000.
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But, for all that promise,
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there just wasn't a
solid plan for the waste.
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- [Rob Nikolewski] One could argue
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maybe we should have thought
about this as a nation
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before we started building
nuclear power plants,
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but by this time,
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the horse is already out of the barn.
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- [Rachel] That's Rob Nikolewski,
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a reporter at the San Diego Union Tribune,
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who's been following
the story at San Onofre
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for years.
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- [Rob] In short, the reason why
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the spent nuclear fuel stays at San Onofre
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is because the federal
government has dropped the ball.
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- [Rachel] For decades, the plan has been
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to bury the waste underground.
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The government was supposed
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to start accepting spent fuel in 1998,
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and the site it settled
on was Yucca Mountain,
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in Nevada.
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Nevada politicians hated that idea.
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- [Senator Harry Reid]
Beginning this year,
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the story takes a new,
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and yes, an ugly turn,
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which the press and
others tagged months ago:
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the "Screw Nevada Bill".
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- [Rachel] So the plan has been stuck
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in limbo for decades,
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and nuclear power companies
have been suing the government
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for missing that deadline.
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Meanwhile, nuclear plants keep operating.
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They produce about 20%
of America's electricity,
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and 2200 tons of waste each year.
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- [Ron] This is probably
not the ideal place
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to store spent nuclear fuel.
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We would all agree on that.
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But, while it's here,
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we will fulfill our obligation
to manage it safely.
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- [Rachel] There are a few
ways out of this situation.
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- [Rob] There's been
a movement in Congress
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to restart Yucca Mountain.
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The Trump Administration
is in favor of that.
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There's a bill that's in the House.
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Then there's this talk about
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consolidated interim storage.
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There are two sites
they've talked about there.
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- [Rachel] There's even talk about
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moving the waste to higher
ground near the plant,
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but farther from the sea.
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- [Rob] There's all these different
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permutations out there that are basically
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put everything up in the air.
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- [Rachel] But in the meantime,
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the waste is going to sit there,
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in that concrete fuel morgue on the coast.
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Again, it's safe in those blocks.
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We stood right next to them,
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and then even swept
ourselves for radiation,
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just to be sure.
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But, for people living near San Onofre,
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it's hard to forget about them entirely.
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- [Ron] They go on with their lives,
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you don't see people freaking out.
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But on the other hand, though,
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it's something that
hangs over their heads.
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- [Rachel] We wanted to see for ourselves,
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so we checked out the beach
that the plant sits on.
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We passed people fishing,
walking their dogs,
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surfing, hanging out,
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like you'd do on any other beach
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that isn't next to 1700
tons of spent nuclear fuel.
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I asked some of them how it feels
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to be living in this thing's shadow.
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They weren't wild about talking on camera,
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but they had a lot to say.
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There was a guy walking
his dog on the beach,
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and he actually said that nuclear power
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is this incredible thing.
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But storing the waste at the plant
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is a federal mistake.
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Another woman was there on
the beach with her family.
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She says she surfs here all the time,
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but it's still eerie when she
takes a wave back to shore
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and she sees those twin reactor domes
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staring back at her.
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(waves rolling)
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So during our tour,
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we weren't the only
visitors to the dry storage.
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There were a ton of seagulls,
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and the plant is doing their
best to keep them away.
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They've got plastic coyotes
patrolling the dry storage,
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but for as long as it's there,
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it's probably gonna be
covered in seagull poop.
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