Were the spiny lobsters nuked?
You may have read my colleague’s story about about lobster carcasses washing up on a San Clemente beach, and suspicions that the Almost-Christmas Crustacean Massacre may have been tied to the release of wastewater — with traces of radioactivity — from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
These “liquid batch releases,” as they’re called in official parlance, have been happening about a mile offshore from the San Onofre plant for more than a half-century. And they’re far less common in today’s tear-down phase (several times a year) than they were (just about daily) when the plant was still splitting atoms.
About 35,000 gallons of wastewater were released in December — roughly enough to fill a junior Olympic-sized swimming pool halfway. Combined with the other four releases last year, the total radiation dose was about 0.000592 millirem, well under the “Annual Whole Body Dose Limit” for radiation set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to San Onofre’s operator, Southern California Edison.
Now, there are sensible folks who don’t believe there’s any “safe” level of man-made radiation spewed into the environment.
And we certainly would not want to drink that 35,000 gallons of wastewater.
But at the risk of the wrath from never-nukers (who regularly bash this humble scribe for not crying “We’re all going to die!” every time we utter the words “San Onofre”) we’ll point out that a) correlation is not causation; stress again that b) wastewater releases much bigger than these have been happening for more than 50 years without Godzilla rising from the depths to devour us; and note that c) we are all going to die, but probably not from San Onofre.
Does living near an active nuclear power plant translate to more cancer cases? Ah. Good question. European studies have suggested that kids are, indeed, at higher risk. But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission killed a study that would have explored that question in this country. (That’s literally another story, which we wrote in 2017. We’d still love to see the study done and get an answer.)
Anyway, officials from California State Parks and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said there’s nothing unusual about the lobster carcasses washing up on the beach. But as official proclamations are often met with deep skepticism in these parts, we turned to Disinterested Experts for their take.
‘Unlikely’
“While I can’t know for sure without seeing or testing the lobsters myself, in my professional opinion it is unlikely that radioactive releases have caused deaths in the local lobster population, and that there are other more plausible explanations,” said Amy Henry, Ph.D., a marine ecologist, researcher and lecturer at UCI Irvine.
“First, the radiation released becomes diluted very quickly in the large volume of the ocean, and the amount an individual lobster would be exposed to is not very much. While it hasn’t been studied in California spiny lobsters, I found a study of the effects of radiation on European lobsters. The closely related lobsters in this study did not die from the much higher and more frequent doses they tested (though they had lowered reproductive capacity), so its unlikely the California lobsters would be hundreds of times more susceptible,” she said.
“In addition, if the radiation were enough to kill lobsters, it would also be killing many, many more species of marine life. The effects of radioactive pollution on other marine life is better studied and extremely variable.”
Studies done after the unprecedented Fukushima disaster in 2011 found elevated levels of radioactive contamination in marine life in the harbor. But studies also found that within a few years the vast majority of seafood caught off the Northeast Coast of Japan was below Japan’s strict radiation limits.
The local carcasses may simply be a run-of-the-mill lobster molt. California spiny lobsters shed their exoskeletons once a year, in the fall. Large waves from winter storms may have washed the molts onto the beach, Henry said — something observed in Dana Point in 2024, San Diego and Imperial Beach in 2023, Strands Beach in 2022, etc.
“The shell can look quite intact but clean inside after it’s discarded, though often the main carapace (the body shell from the eyes to the tail) pops off. The feathery-looking gills also molt and remain attached inside near the legs. If there isn’t actually lobster tissue still in the tail or legs, and it doesn’t smell overwhelmingly bad, its much more likely that this is a molt.”
There are a few other possible explanations, especially if the dead lobsters are stinky, she said. Yes, lobsters can get sick, but California spiny lobsters rarely get sick all at once. That’s because they’re relatively solitary creatures and avoid one other, (not unlike news editors), reducing disease transmission compared to other lobster species.
“Other pollutants such as pesticides or heavy metals don’t usually kill adult lobsters, and they can avoid areas during low salinity events, such as after large rainstorms. Its possible one or more of these stressors weakened some adult lobsters and they got washed up on the shore by the waves,” Henry said.
“Without examining them myself, I can’t say anything about these lobsters definitively. But based on past observations and what we know about both lobsters and radioactivity, it is likely that this is nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of ocean health.”
We also checked with the Surfrider Foundation, which didn’t feel it had enough information to comment. And we asked Garry Brown, founder and president of Orange County Coastkeeper and Inland Empire Waterkeeper. Brown has inquired about batch releases from San Onofre and learned that the quality of the wastewater is high, actually meeting drinking water standards. He wasn’t clear that there was any actual connection between the lobster carcasses and the batch release.
‘No logical threat’
And there isn’t, Edison said. The company has found no evidence that the releases have affected marine life.
“We check batches of wastewater prior to release and can confirm they meet drinking water standards — so there is no logical threat to the marine environment,” said spokesman Jeff Monford.
Edison had divers in the ocean inspecting the offshore conduits near the plant from Dec. 15-19, and they saw no issues as they sampled sediment and refurbished buoys in front of the plant, he said.
There’s also radiological environmental monitoring of the area, as per U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements, and gauging whether radiation is concentrating over time.
“We sample and monitor ocean water, ocean bottom sediment, shoreline sediment, kelp, and marine species at several beach locations north and south of the plan to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the community. The (Nuclear Regulator Commission) sets strict limit guidelines for commercial nuclear plants. Through this monitoring, we have seen no detrimental impact from (San Onofre) on the local environment,” he said.
Edison has been addressing skepticism about the batch releases for years, and made a video to explain its processes that you can find at http://bit.ly/49p4bOw.
There were five batch releases last year (on Jan. 14, Jan. 29, Feb. 6, March 20 and Dec. 11), totaling 469,661 gallons and the aforementioned 0.0000445 millirem, Edison said.
The NRC sets release limits, and the annual allowance for San Onofre is 6 millirem from liquid effluents. Natural sources of radiation — the sun, our food — contribute about 300 millirem per year for the average person, while man-made sources — think X-rays — contribute another 300 millirem a year.
Edison notifies the public 48 hours before batch releases, which will continue through the plant’s dismantlement (slated to wrap up in 2028-ish). Since all the water from the spent fuel cooling pools has been released, future releases will be largely water that accumulates from natural rainfall and water used for dust suppression during demolition, Monford said.
Releases have averaged about 25,000 gallons, last some four to six hours, and use the Unit 2 conduit, which extends more than 8,000 feet into the ocean. The actual discharge occurs in the diffuser section, about 6,000 feet (1.1 mile) from shore.
“Swimming and surfing at San Onofre is safe,” Monford said. “Treated water releases have no measurable impact on people. The radiation dose is already extremely small, and once released, it’s diluted by the vast Pacific Ocean, dropping to levels too low to detect.
“Human exposure depends on pathways, and for liquid releases the only meaningful one would be eating seafood (e.g., fish, crustaceans) that accumulates radioactivity… It’s important to know, too, that decades of monitoring around SONGS show no such accumulation. There’s also no drinking‑water pathway because no potable water sources exist near the site.”
We hope this clears up some of the Almost-Christmas Crustacean Massacre mystery. Lobster bake, anyone?
