SUNDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 1, 1964
~ ,
'Dropping Of
A-Plant Ends
Long Dispute
By DON ENGDAHL
An epochal chapter in a mon­umental
running news story was
written last Friday with Pacific
Gas & Electric Co.'s dramatic
withdrawal from Bodega Head.
Whether that was really the
end of the remarkable saga re­mains
- characteristically -
somewhat up in the air.
From beginning to date the
story of the giant utility and
the people has seldom been sim­ple,
and nearly always dramat-ic.
.
PG&E has announced with­drawal
of its application to the
Atomic Energy Commission to
bulld a $63 million nuclear­SAN
FRANCISCO (UPI)­The
Sierra Club yesterday
urged the Bodega Head, now
abandoned as the site for a
nuclear power plant, become
a state park.
In a letter to Pacific Gas &
Electric Co., owner of the
property, Sierra C I u b Pres­ident
William E. Siri said, "Bo­dega
Head .now appears to
have been an unsafe location
for an atomio pl;mt and it
remains an unsuitable place
for any power plant on the
original grounds of scenic, his­toric
and bioligical preserva-
·tion." ,
fueled power plant on the pen- ---------~­insular
headland that forms the plant on the bar re n Bodega
west side of Bodega Bay. headlands and went to the coun-
It sa~d a "reasonable doubt" ty for a u;e permit.
was raIsed by an AEC staff con- At th t r 'th f '1 f I d
elusion that the site is un suit- a Ime el er OSSI -. ue e
HOW CONDEMNED SITE LOOKED THIS WEEKEND
Its Future Is Uncertain
able at the present state of or nucl~~r. power was conSIdered
knowledge. a POSSI~liJty, a~d t~e company
The company stifF whIch It planned;
. acres on the headlands, which it Announcement of nuclear pow­once
considered a prime site -
for an electric generating plant.
What it will do with the site
now remains an unanswered
question. The PG&E statement
said the company has generat­ing
capacity elsewhere to "take
care of our customers' needs for I
the s eve r a I years immedi- f
ately ahead." i
If the company proposed to
build instead a conventional gen­erating
plant, it' would have to
go back to the California Public
Utilities Commission for permis- !
sion. . :
And it would face similar ques­tions
of earthquake safety that i
. did in the nuclear plant propos- I
aI, as well as questions of eco- I
nomic feasibility. "
The long and incredibly com- \.
plicated saga of the utility's at­tempt
to build the Bodega plant \
reached the public arena in 1958. j
Then PG&E announced plans ~
to build an electric generating I 'I
And to PG&E, which could
I stand and fight, attempt to PG&E B d H d S· t show that there was a "reason-
I.fA- Press Democra', Santa Rosa, C'attf., Sun., Nov. 1, 1964
o eg a ea 1 e ~~I~s ~~~~~nce,,, or pull back H Public pressure was immedi- ad Controversial History :~;ise~O~heE~m~~dt:'p:ro:u~
. if there was "any question of
(Continued from, Page lA) westshore access road to thei the plant design was adequate safety at all,!' and PUC Com-er
as the source of heat for the plant-by letting a contract for I if "the reactor and turbine missioner William ~ennett sug­generating
plant was made by its construction. buildings will not be located on gested the PUC mIght re-enter
the company June 28, 1961. . . T~e road is now nearing com-I an active fault line." , the case i: PG&E perSisted.
The next .step. was a .hear~l~ pletlOn; s.ome problems of soft I Shortly after Interior Secre. PG&E WIthdrew .
~Y the Ca~If~1111a Public UtIlI- ~?ots on ~ts"s~oulder and somc ltary Stewart Udall expressed . The ro~e of. the p~b1ic protest
ties com. mission on the . compa- mud boils m the bay have! "grav. e concern" over potential lIn the SItuatIon WIll never be.
ny's application for a certificate arisen, and PG&E may be re- i earthquake hazards.· full y assessed. It certainly
of "convenience and necessity" quired ?y the U.S. Army Corps In August of that year, ap- c.aused delays and-some be­for
the plant. of Engmeers to do some col'· parently at least partly in re- lIeve-guaranteed a closer scru-
That was in March of 1962; it rective dredging.sponse to the AEC committee's tiny of the project than would
was a .low-key, three-~ay affair It is eventually to be turned e:l.'"Pression of concern over the otherwise have taken place.
held m San FrancIsco and over to Sonoma County as a possibility an active earthquake On the other hand, It may be
marked by a minimum of op- public road. I line was beneath the site PG&E argued that what happened
Position-all on a conservation While opponents began repeat- began excavating the i42-foot.lwould have happened anyway;
theme. PG&E was at that time ed attempts to get the Califor- diameter, 73-foot reactor pit. that the case would have been
1n the process · of acquiring the i nia Public Utilities Commission one on which " reasonable men,
last of the 225 acres for the pow- fto re-open the case, PG&E went , Site Called "Poor" may differ," as the AEC Staff i
er plant site on the tiP . of the II t? the Ato~ic Energy Commis- Almost as the excavation be- wrote, and tha~ the difference
headlands. . sl?n I.ate m .Dec.ember of 1962 gan, the Northern califOrnia \WOUld have raJse~ the dOUbts ,
Mter the PUC hearmg was WIth Its appiJcahon for a con- Association to Preserve Bodega that PG&E PreSIdent Robert
~Iosed the state body got a · struction permit f~r the plant. Head & Harbor produced a re- I G~rdeS cited when he a?no~nCed I
' large number" of protests and And another splmter battle de- port by an internationally-mown WIthdrawal of the applJcatlon. .
re-opened the hearing for five veloped as the association went earthquake expert who said the - .
more days ih May and June that to court in Sonoma County, seek- site-was-"very poor:" . 1
showed the first real strength ing to invalidate the use permit I Dr_ Pierre Saint-Arnand re-of
opp~sition to the proposal. I the county had given the com-I ported that he'd seen evidence \
Agam, the real focus was on pany for the plant. of faulting at the plant site and
the conservationist theme al- 'I The county won that fight in a concluded it "quite likely" that I
though biological and earthquake ,legal decision that 'turned on a there'd be movement across the I
hazards were spotlighted from I ruling that opponents had "slept site in the event of a major I
time to time. Ion their rights" in not going to earthquake.
The PUC in November of that court earlier - and promptly In November of last year the
year issued its approval of the capped the victory with a re- first of what became a series
plan-conditioned sub~equent ap zoning. of Bodega Head that lo£ reports by United States Geo­proval
by the AtomiC Energy made It unnecessary for the logical Survey geologists was
Commission?~ the reactor. . company to have a permit any· released; it revealed the pres-
The OppoSItIon at that time way_ ence of the "shaR fault," a
was far from organized, and its Meanwhile, the central issue fault in the underlying granite
attack on the PG&E plan was in the battle-the issue that fi· rock running through the reac­guerrilla
warfare on targets of nally became fatal-was coming tor pit.
opportunity. A leader of sorts into clearer focus: Earthquake PG&E consultants .termed it
then was David Pesonen, con- danger at the site. inactive, and predicted that any
.ervation editor of the Sierra The spot chosen by PG&E movements of the rock would
ClUb. for the reactor and associated be "of such minor amounts as
The PUC in November of that buildings-on the easterly side to be negligible."
year issued its approval of the of Bodega Head, opposite Doran USGS geologists disagreed,
plan-conditioned on subsequent Park- is about 1,000 feet wester· and said bedrock movements
approyal of the reactor by the lyof the broad trace of the San "on the order of a few feet" I
AtomIC Energy Commission. Andreas earthquake fault. were likely in the event of a I
Opposition Organizes ~u&.I!.; geological .an~ seismo- 1906-magnltude e~rthq~~e.
Opposition forces meanwhile logIcal c~nsultants mSIsted that The dispute was .clear and un­had
been organizing under the the locatl?n was a good ?llE:-1 re~olved, and contmued through
banner of the Northern Califor- and that ~ fact the proxlimty thIS yea:.
nia Association To Preserve BOo to the mam fault meant less The dIspute led PG&E-never
dega Head & Harbor A d b _ danger from earthquake trem- conceding the possibility that
ginning to concentrat~ i~s f:e ors. . . there hight be large ground
on tbe safety aspects of the . In May of 1.963 th AEC's Ad- moven:ents-to submit. to ' the
Plant wI-th M P th vlsory CommIttee on Reactor AEC m April a " deSIgn con-
" exec, utive secrr. etaersyo.n" en as e S~ f e guard s, an a d VI. SO~ c?m- cep t" wh 'l ch I. t saI-d woul d take
In December PG&E ended one i m1dtteee nm:ade. up of 13 .StClentIsdt.s caTreh °tf the Ptro~~eflm. t" th
phase of a controversy within a i ~n ng eel s, gave I s con 1- a was 0 oa e reac­controversy
_ the 1"0 f f bonal approval to the power tor on a layer of sand, instead
u mg 0 a plant plans. of bedding, it in the rock as
But it warned of a source of was previously planned. ' I
potenfa tro bl in savi g hat The new concept led to a'
series of probing questions from
the AEC regulatory staff aimed
at the consequences of ground
movement of the order pre­dicted
by the USGS.
As it finally turned out, the
utility's answers satisfied the I
AEC's Advisory Committee on
Reactor Safeguards that the I
plant could be built with the
"reasonable" assu r ran c e of I
safety.
But they failed to convince
the regulatory staff, which re­ported
it disagreed, and found
the site unsuitable-an unprece­dented
situation in the AEC
lant licensing program. .
That left it to the AEC, whicl1.
could issue a permit for the I
lant only after public hearings.