The State - News from May 29, 1986

Southern California residents need not worry about a major nuclear reactor accident similar to the one at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union last month, a Southern California Edison Co. executive said. “Once we discover what actually happened at Chernobyl, there’s a good chance that it will turn out to be a peculiarly Soviet problem,” said Lawrence T. Papay, a nuclear engineer and Edison’s senior vice president. Papay said the kind of accident that occurred at Chernobyl can not happen at Edison’s San Onofre nuclear generating station, because “first, the Soviet plant is based on a completely different reactor design and, second, it lacks containment barriers as designed for San Onofre.”