9 months of the year. The 2010 U.S. population within of San Onofre was 92,687, an increase of 50.0 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 8,460,508, an increase of 14.9 percent since 2000. Three of the cities within 20 miles of the facility are San Clemente and Laguna Beach in Orange County and Oceanside in San Diego County. San Diego is 45 miles south of the facility, and Los Angeles is 60 miles north of the facility. Anti-nuclear protests, 1977– present On August 6, 1977, about a thousand anti-nuclear protesters marched outside the nuclear generation station, while units 2 & 3 were under construction. On June 22, 1980, in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident, about 15,000 people attended a protest rally against the San Onofre nuclear plant that was organized by the Southern California Alliance For Survival. Among the speakers was physicist Michio Kaku, who noted that one of the reactor pressure vessels had been installed backwards and called on California governor Jerry Brown (then considered an environmentalist) to shut them down. On March 11, 2012, more than 200 activists protested at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station to mark the one-year anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Two Japanese residents who lived through the Fukushima meltdowns and congressman Raymond Lutz, spoke. They said the generators which had been offline since January 2012, should remain off. In May 2012, environmental and anti-nuclear activists gathered at Southern California Edison's Irvine headquarters calling for the San Onofre plant to be decommissioned. Kittens In February 1996, 4 kittens were found at the plant. The kittens were adopted by plant workers. Shutdown, 2012 and closure, 2013 Initial shutdown Unit 2 was shut down in early January 2012 for routine refueling and replacement of the reactor vessel head. On January 31, 2012, Unit 3 suffered a radioactive leak largely inside the containment shell, with a release to the environment below allowable limits, and the reactor was shut down per standard procedure. On investigation, the replacement steam generators from 2011 in both units were found to show premature wear on over 3,000 tubes, in 15,000 places. Plant officials pledged not to restart until the causes of the tube leak and tube degradation were understood. Neither unit was ever restarted. There were no blackouts due to the lack of