Announcing our new title…

We want to let all of you know who’ve been following and supporting the production of our SHUTDOWN documentary of the San Onofre story that our ten-year film project has naturally expanded and changed focus. Our new title, S.O.S. - The SAN ONOFRE SYNDROME, now accurately reflects the increased scope and thrust of our narrative. 

In 2011 we set out to tell the archetypal saga of citizens working to shut down a nuclear power plant but crucial citizen action couldn’t stop with the 2013 shutdown. 

After the shut down we continued to document as residents were now forced to confront the legacy left behind – tons of high level radioactive waste from decades of reactor operation, stranded on the beach. 

Seventy-three canisters of seething radioactive waste have been put 108 feet from the rising ocean into 5/8” thin, easily corroded stainless steel containers that can’t be inspected, repaired or maintained and are gouged along their entire 20 foot length by faulty design during moving.  Unbelievably all this waste is situated on what was formerly known as ‘earthquake bay’ in a tsunami zone in the midst of a population of millions between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Like the other aging reactors around the country, most headed for shutdown within the next 20 years, San Onofre embodies the existential conundrum – how to sequester from the environment this legacy of long-lived waste that will be radioactive and lethal to all living things for longer into the future than civilization has yet existed. 

How do citizens deal with powerful industry forces that are taking the quickest, cheapest methods to increase profits while regulatory agencies give exemptions to safety rules and politicians promise to ‘get it outta here’ without grappling with the technical and moral challenges?  How can reactor communities protect our planetary DNA from this dangerous waste within the post-pandemic re-structuring of political life?

 Our characters explain why transporting it is impossibly risky and environmentally unjust, why significant infrastructure is needed for waste handling and protection and why generational management is necessary.  They urge the best minds and the highest consciousness humans can muster to fully face this dire situation and implement the steps towards solutions, such as they are. We need the best approach and technology available to mitigate the damage from this corrosive poison that lasts millions of years.  This is true and will be for reactor communities all over the U.S. and the world.

That’s why the title change to S.O.S. - The SAN ONOFRE SYNDROME - a distress signal to reactor communities everywhere - because Shutdown is just the beginning.

Please stay tuned as we move toward completion and release.