Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) must return to the California Coastal Commission with new plans to mitigate Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s environmental issues if it wants permits to keep the nuclear facility running.
“We’re talking about decades of staggering and devastating environmental impact that demand action not delay,” Commissioner Raymond Jackson said during the Nov. 6 meeting. “We need the meaningful protection for the more than 12,000 acres of irreplaceable coastal lands, not vague promises of future mitigation and uncertain outcomes.”
Since it became active in the 1980s, Diablo Canyon has been operating under two U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for its twin reactor units. Those licenses were set to expire in 2025. Prior to their expiration date, state legislation in the form of Senate Bill 846 and California Public Utilities Commission actions allowed PG&E to keep the plant open until 2030.
The utility company filed a license renewal application in 2023 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep the reactors running for an additional 20 years.
On Nov. 6, PG&E needed the Coastal Commission to review a consistency certification for the new 20-year federal operating licenses and approve coastal development permit applications for operating the units for a shorter time—until Oct. 31, 2029, for Unit 1 and Oct. 31, 2030, for Unit 2. The state has only approved running the units through those dates.
According to the Coastal Commission staff report, PG&E initially declined to not only submit a permit application but also to acknowledge that mitigation was necessary to offset Diablo Canyon’s impact on coastal resources.
The most adverse of these impacts, Coastal Commission staff said, is to marine life as the nuclear plant cycles 2.5 billion gallons of water every day from the Pacific Ocean to cool its depleted fuel pools and safety components.
“For context, this made up roughly 62 percent of the total volume of cooling water used by all coastal power plants in California in 2024,” the staff report said. “The most recent available entrainment studies show that the DCPP’s [Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s] use of seawater results in an annual loss of marine life equal to that produced in up to 9,360 acres, or more than 14 square miles, of nearshore waters.”
In October, PG&E submitted the permit application and a mitigation proposal that would be carried out in two phases. But many officials and community members want the company to do more to protect the land surrounding the plant.
“You need to find ways to protect all the 12,000 acres of this pristine coastal area,” Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation Vice Chair Michael Khus told commissioners. “This staff recommendation that strips 11,000 acres of protection from the bulldozering and the heavy development is not what the Coastal Commission stands for.”
Coastal Commission staff recommended approving the permits and consistency certification for PG&E based on four outlined mitigation measures—setting up a conservation easement across roughly 1,100 acres of the North Ranch portion of PG&E’s property directly adjacent to Montaña de Oro State Park; an offer to dedicate a public access trail easement for roughly 10 miles of new trail alignments; an offer of $5.6 million to accompany the trail easement for planning, construction, management, and maintenance of public access trails; and establishing a right of first refusal for government entities, nonprofit land conservation organizations, or California native American tribes to purchase land interests in Wild Cherry Canyon.
State Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) wanted PG&E to extend conservation easements across the entirety of North Ranch and South Ranch (containing Wild Cherry Canyon), which makes up the 14-mile stretch of Diablo Canyon Lands located in the Irish Hills region of San Luis Obispo County.
“Bluntly put, the proposed mitigation plan in the staff report is grossly inadequate, given the impacts associated with Diablo’s continued operations,” Laird wrote in a letter to the Coastal Commission.
Several Santa Barbara County elected officials spoke during the meeting, asking the commission to approve the permit extensions without requiring additional mitigation measures.
Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson said that while San Luis Obispo County may feel the most immediate economic impacts from Diablo Canyon, the nuclear power plant affects the whole region.
“Santa Barbara County suffers from some of the largest wealth gaps in the state, and in the nation. Diablo and PG&E are in fact one of our largest employers, along with the jobs from the associated contractors and businesses serving that plant, [which] in totality make up one of our largest sources of head-of-household jobs in my disadvantaged communities,” Nelson said. “Consider my constituents in your vote.”
Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino echoed the need for continued head-of-household jobs in Santa Maria and said that the growing city’s need for reliable, affordable electricity would only increase in the future. Most clean power sources are expensive, she said, calling the nuclear energy that Diablo provides a clean source of electricity that already makes up 17 percent of the state’s clean energy.
“Solar panels would only take up much of our fertile ag lands. We are an ag community here,” Patino said. “The state has mandated that our homes and our cars be electrified, and how do we do that if we don’t have Diablo online?”
Solvang Mayor David Brown called the facility a “strategic and national asset on the West Coast,” saying it is “as strategic as Vandenberg” Space Force Base. He added that the city of Solvang passed a resolution in support of PG&E’s application, license renewal, and extensions.
“Without exception today, I’ve heard everyone say that this land is pristine and amazing, and I think that’s a testament to the stewardship that PG&E has had, as it’s been under their control for many decades now,” Brown said.
SLO County’s elected officials were a little more divided in their comments to the Coastal Commission. For instance, 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson said he supported Laird’s call for more land conservation, while 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said she supported staff’s recommendation.
“We’re talking about affordability,” said Ortiz-Legg, who represents the Diablo Canyon region. “We’re talking about creating this path to open spaces but also doing it not on the back of ratepayers.”
Coastal commissioners voted to continue both the permit application and consistency certification reviews to December, giving staff and PG&E more time to work on the mitigation plan. The commission will next meet from Dec. 10 to 12.
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal from the Sun’s sister paper at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com. Editor Camillia Lanham contributed to this story.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 4, 2025.
great