The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is planning on dropping the investigation of Southern California Edison involving potential irregularities that may have contributed to problems that lead to the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power station.
The plant closed in January 2012 due to the discovery of premature wear in thousands of tubes in the plant's four steam generators that were replaced in a $670 million maintenance overhaul during a 2009-2010 outage. Southern Edison announced in August 2013 that it would shutter the plant permanently.
Since then, the NRC has ruled that the plant's operator failed to recognize design flaws in the generators, which lead to problems, including a minor leak of radioactive steam in January 2012.
The NRC on Monday released a proposed decision that said a decision on whether or not federal rules were broken was moot, given the plant has been closed since 2013, the Associated Press reported.
The decision received a negative reaction from the Friends of the Earth environmental group that called for the investigation.
Damon Moglen, a senior adviser to the group called the NRC decision “willful ignorance of serious safety risks.”
“Neither the NRC nor Edison is absolved by the closure of the reactors,” Moglen said in a letter to the NRC.
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