What a pair.
Southern California will soon bid farewell to the infamous “nuclear boobs” that have towered over Interstate 5 for decades.
The two massive twin domes at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) are set to be demolished by the end of the year as part of a yearslong process to remove nuclear waste from the shuttered nuclear plant.
Fifty-two of the plant’s 62 structures have already been demolished, and more than 700 million pounds of radioactive material have been removed from the site, leaving around 3.6 million pounds to go. Full decommissioning of the plant is expected by 2028, according to US Rep. Mike Levin.
“When I convened the SONGS Task Force in 2019, there was no clear path to move nuclear waste off our coastline. Today, we can point to real progress at San Onofre and growing momentum at the federal level,” Levin said in a press release.
The senator says more than 1,600 tons of spent nuclear fuel still sit at the site, which sits between Orange and San Diego Counties, just 100 feet from the Pacific Ocean.
“We cannot mistake progress for a permanent solution. I will keep working across party lines to secure the funding, reforms, and safe storage and disposal options needed to finally get this waste off our coast.”
The two domes were built in 1983 and 1984, before being decommissioned in 2013.
Though the plant has been shuttered for over a decade, Californians are already mourning the loss of the beloved boobs.
“Losing a piece of my childhood. Well, two I guess,” one Redditor joked.
“Should have kept them and paint them as an art piece to be seen by aircraft flying by like Hollywood sign,” another wrote.
“We called them the Dolly Parton buildings while driving down the 5 fwy as kids. It’s only fitting that they start to come down,” a third remarked.
The domes have become pop culture icons, often referred to as “Dolly Parton” by locals. They were immortalized in the 1986 Descendents song “Kids” with the lyrics, “Went driving down to San Diego/ Passing up the nuclear tits,” as well as in the 1988 film, “The Naked Gun.”
The push to tear down the domes comes as activists and officials have raised concerns about the plant potentially leaking radiation in the area.
“For too long, our communities have lived with the uncertainty of storing spent nuclear fuel along our coastline without a permanent solution in place,” Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley said in October. “With rising sea levels, coastal erosion and seismic risks, we cannot afford to let this issue languish.”
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