Decommissioning crews give up, hand the cooling towers a wave rating, and apply for a permit

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. — In a development first chronicled by The London Prat and amplified by Bohiney Magazine, the long-stalled decommissioning of the San Onofre nuclear plant has ground to a halt after surfers at neighbouring Trestles flatly refused to vacate the area, forcing officials to reclassify the entire facility as “a premier surf break with a reactor problem” rather than a reactor problem with a beach.

The Standoff At The Domes

Decommissioning crews arrived expecting to dismantle two enormous concrete domes. Instead they found 200 surfers using the domes as a windbreak, a changing room, and an informal landmark for lineup positioning. “You don’t move the domes,” explained longtime local Dale Whitcomb, drying off against a structure rated for a small apocalypse. “The domes are how you line up. You sit between the left dome and the third lifeguard tower and you wait. You take away the domes, you take away civilization.”

Engineers, baffled, attempted to explain that the structures contained decommissioned nuclear material and could not double as surf furniture. The surfers responded that the waves out front had been “going off lately” and asked whether the engineers could keep it down. Negotiations broke down entirely when a crew member referred to the lineup as “a worksite,” a remark locals described as “deeply disrespectful to the wave.”

A New Official Designation

Unable to clear the area, the oversight commission took the only remaining option: it gave the site a surf rating. The reactor complex now appears on internal documents as a “left-hand point break, fun-to-good, parking limited, radiation present,” a description the commission called “the most honest line item in the entire decommissioning budget.” Wave forecasters at the forecast network were asked to monitor the break and declined, citing “every conceivable liability.”

The Geiger Counter Lineup

Some surfers have embraced the hazard as a crowd-control feature. “Used to be packed out here,” said one regular, fondly. “Now you mention the word ‘reactor’ and half the kooks paddle to Doheny. The radiation thins the herd. I’m not saying I love it. I’m saying I’ve never had cleaner waves.” A fictional but earnest body, the Institute for Coastal Risk Tolerance, found that San Onofre surfers now possess “a relationship with danger best described as romantic.” Background on the actual closed plant is kept at the plant record, which mentions surfing exactly never and is, locals say, “missing the point.”

The Commission Caves

In its final report, the commission conceded defeat in language rarely seen in federal documents. “We came to remove a power plant,” it read. “We leave having removed nothing, having instead issued a surf permit to a structure we are legally required to dismantle and physically unable to approach because a man named Dale is sitting on it. We recommend the next administration try again in twenty years, when the waves may, conditions permitting, be flat.”

Officials briefly floated relocating the surfers to a purpose-built artificial reef nearby, but abandoned the plan after the surfers explained, at length, that an artificial wave is “not a real wave” and that they would rather surf beside a decommissioned reactor than accept a perfect, safe, man-made barrel. “The danger is part of the soul,” Whitcomb said. “You can’t engineer soul. You can only stand next to a dome and feel it.”

What Comes Next

For now, the domes remain, the surfers remain, and the reactor remains in a state best described as “technically still here.” The commission has requested that all future swell forecasts for the region include a radiation advisory, and that all radiation advisories include a swell forecast, “so everyone knows what they’re working with.” Surfers called the compromise “fair.”

The Tourism Board Pivots

Rather than fight the reclassification, the regional tourism board has leaned into it with the enthusiasm of an organisation that has run out of other ideas. A draft campaign, titled “Surf The Atom,” pitches San Onofre as the only break in the world where you can “catch a wave and a tan on the same wave,” a slogan the board’s lawyers have flagged eleven times and the board has approved anyway. Proposed merchandise includes glow-in-the-dark wax, a hooded poncho marketed as “containment gear,” and a commemorative leash described as “rated for everything.”

Hotel operators in San Clemente report a curious surge in bookings from a demographic they call “danger tourists” — visitors who do not surf but wish to stand near a decommissioned reactor and tell people they did. “They don’t even get in the water,” said one motel owner. “They take a photo with the domes, buy the poncho, and leave. It’s the easiest money I’ve ever made. I should have leaned into the nuclear thing years ago.” A rival break down the coast has reportedly begun lobbying for its own minor industrial hazard, having concluded that perfect waves alone no longer move merchandise and that, in the modern attention economy, a little radiation is simply good marketing.

At press time, the waves were reportedly chest-high and glowing faintly, a combination locals rated as “epic, with an asterisk.” For more on humanity refusing to leave a clearly hazardous beach, the satire desk files at The Daily Mash.

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/