Vistra Energy is demolishing part of the former PG&E power plant at Moss Landing in Monterey County, California, and building a large lithium-ion battery storage facility there. According to very credible reports from people that worked for PG&E and GE, GE built a breeder nuclear reactor for PG&E at Moss Landing in the late 1960s. If true, that could pose significant radioactive contamination risks to demolition workers and the surrounding environment. Demolition must be immediately halted.

The public isn’t aware that a nuclear reactor of any type exists or existed at Moss Landing, but according to sources, GE nuclear power division in San Jose designed and built a breeder reactor for PG&E at Moss Landing in 1968, and it began operation in approximately 1969. It was a very expensive reactor, and it was not for power generation. It operated until the mid to late 1970s when it was shut down for unknown reasons. The control room, and possibly the reactor itself, were underneath the #6 or #7 535-foot smoke stacks. There was an access stairwell to the underground reactor control room, with a metal railing surround. After the reactor was shut down, the control room access was still visible.

A former worker at Moss Landing witnessed small planes periodically flying through the steam of the smoke stacks, presumably taking air samples. That person was told the smoke stack emissions were only steam, but any reactor emissions might have been vented out the tall stacks.

When a person who helped build the reactor later went to work for PG&E in the 1980s and inquired about the reactor and how it was functioning, PG&E employees told the person, “It doesn’t exist,” and “Shut the f*** up or you’re finding a new job”. That next weekend, PG&E filled in the access stairwell with concrete and cut off the metal railing at ground level.

One former employee went to Monterey County Planning Department to research if permits had been issued for the reactor and didn’t find any record of permits. In response to FOIA requests, the NRC also did not find any responsive records on the reactor, meaning they have no records or they have no records they will disclose to the public.

A breeder reactor is for the purpose of making plutonium for the military and for nuclear bombs. PG&E and GE operated a breeder reactor together at Vallecitos beginning in 1957. This type of reactor does not produce energy. One source suggested the Moss Landing reactor was to make off-the-books plutonium.

If the reactor existed, it was operated by PG&E at the same time as the company was operating the Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant, called by Science Magazine “the dirtiest of the nation’s power reactors” [1]. It would have had the same safety problems, the same lack of AEC/NRC oversight, and potentially the same high radioactive emissions and contamination to the surrounding area. The area around the power plant and underground, including any control room and ground water, may be highly polluted with radioactive elements including hot particles and plutonium, considered by experts to be the deadliest of poisons, with no safe level of ingestion or inhalation. Contamination would pose hazards to local residents, to the waterways and ocean, to groundwater, to agricultural products, and to workers on the site.

State, federal, and local authorities have been notified of the situation including NRC, DOE, CDC ATSDR, California DTSC, CalEPA, CDPH, Monterey County EHIB, and the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, but to date, they have taken no known steps to investigate the situation or have refused to do so. Nuclear and environmental experts, civic groups, non-profit organizations, and other resources have also been informed about this situation,

Meanwhile, Vistra Energy continues demolishing equipment and buildings at the site.

Action steps needed now:

— Demolition work at Moss Landing by Vistra and other companies must be halted immediately due to the danger to workers and the surrounding environment from possible contaminated equipment and buried radioactive materials, pending an investigation.

— A thorough and public investigation must take place immediately into the complete history of PG&E’s uses and facilities at Moss Landing and the existence and extent of any radioactive contamination there.

— Removal and remediation of any and all contaminated soils and machinery, including excavation, must be undertaken by licensed professionals with full transparency. And any soil and debris already removed must be tracked and dump sites notified of its possible contamination.

— If radioactive gases were vented through the smoke stacks, their level of radioactive contamination must be assessed.

— The risk of fire and explosion of the lithium-ion batteries onsite adds another element of risk to any onsite radioactive contamination and potential dispersal offsite. This may necessitate the shut-down of the battery energy storage facilities until an investigation is completed.

[1] Reactor Emissions: AEC Guidelines Move Toward Critics’ Position, Science, June 18, 1971

For information on Humboldt Bay Nuclear Power Plant:

My Humboldt Diary, by Bob Rowen
https://myhumboldtdiary.com/index.html

https://healfukushima.org/2023/01/25/former-humboldt-bay-nuclear-plant-technician-pgampes-safety-problems-and-retaliation/
Interview with Bob Rowen — video and transcript, January 26, 2015

https://healfukushima.org/2023/01/25/nuclear-accident-at-pgampes-humboldt-bay-nuclear-plant-whistleblower-presents-the-evidence/
Interview with Scott Rainsford — video and transcript, September 22, 2020

https://healfukushima.org/2023/02/15/pge-humboldt-nuclear-power-plant-accident-the-cover-up/
Second interview with Scott Rainsford – video and transcript, December 12, 2020

https://healfukushima.org/2023/01/25/humboldt-bay-problems-continue-pgampe-retaliates-against-decommissioning-expert/
Interview with Darrell Whitman, attorney and former Federal OSHA investigator, February 2015