Immigrant slips into Calif. nuclear plant aboard freight train

Immigrant slips into Calif. nuclear plant aboard freight train    An illegal immigrant sleeping in a railcar managed to ride a freight train undetected into the San Onofre, Calif., nuclear power plant recently, prompting plant operator Southern California Edison to change its security procedures for inspecting train cars entering the facility.
   Edison officials said the man was found wandering around the train on the power plant property shortly after the three freight cars arrived inside the facility in the early morning of July 25. On entering the 84-acre facility, with the man aboard, the cars did pass near an area where Edison stores highly radioactive spent reactor fuel, but the train does not enter the more highly guarded area where the reactors and active fuel resides. The man was confronted by power plant staff and later arrested.
   The train services the power plant from a spur off the main Southern California north-south rail corridor, which runs just outside of the facility, located about 50 miles north of San Diego.
   The incident was discovered in a review of documents obtained by the North County Times on Tuesday.
   Plant officials said the incident was a minor issue and asserted that they were confident that the man could not have passed the numerous checkpoints to other areas of the facility.
   The San Onofre nuclear power plant, adjacent to Interstate 5 and bounded by San Onofre State Park and Camp Pendelton U.S. Marine Corps Base, opened in 1967. It contains three generating reactors, though Unit 1 was decommissioned in 1992 after 25 years of service, and provides 20 percent of the electrical power for Southern California.