Opponents of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) say their hard work, paid off.
Gary Headrick, co-founder of San Clemente Green summed it up in four words, "It's a huge day!"
On Friday, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced it will retire two reactors at the plant north of Oceanside.
Read: San Onofre Nuclear Plant Closing
"The people don't want it, and it's not worth the risk," Headrick said.
The decision to shut down San Onofre comes after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled more tests were required to decide if Unit 2 could be put back into operation.
"The economics were no longer there to continue to hope for a regulatory path, when we had so much uncertainty created by this federal licensing board decision," SCE spokesperson Maureen Brown said.
"We have an obligation to our customers and to our shareholders to make the best economic decisions and that's the decision we made today," Brown said.
Southern California Edison wanted to try running Unit 2 at 70 percent for 5 months.
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Timeline: Shutdown of San Onofre
According to chief engineer studying the Unit's faulty-steam-generators -- this proposal qualified as an "experiment".
"And the NRC doesn't like to experiment on eight million people," said Arnie Gundersen with the Vermont company Faire Winds.
"In order to get an experiment approved, you've got to have the public involved."
That would include public hearings and Gundersen said SCE decided it didn’t want to take that risk and the financial burden was too much.
