Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

The Trojan Powder Company had formerly manufactured gunpowder and dynamite on a 634-acre (2.57 km²) site on the banks of the Columbia River, four miles (6.5 km) from the town of Rainier, Oregon. In 1967, Portland General Electric chose the site for a new nuclear power plant.[5] Construction began on February 1, 1970;[6][7][8] first criticality was achieved on December 15, 1975, and grid connection eight days later on December 23. Commercial operation began on May 20, 1976,[9] under a 35-year license to expire in 2011. At the time, the single 1,130 megawatt unit at Trojan was the world's largest pressurized water reactor; it cost $460 million to build the plant.[10]

Environmental opposition dogged Trojan from its inception,[8] and the opposition included non-violent protests organized by the Trojan Decommissioning Alliance. Direct action protests were held at the plant in 1977 and 1978, resulting in hundreds of arrests.[11]

Two people fishing near the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor dome is visible on the left, and the massive cooling tower on the right.

In 1978, the plant went offline on March 17 for routine refueling and was idle for nine months while modifications were made to improve its resistance to earthquakes.[12] This followed the discovery of both major building construction errors and the close proximity of a previously unknown fault.[13] The operators sued the builders, and an undisclosed out-of-court settlement was eventually reached.

The Trojan steam generators were designed to last the life of the plant, but it was only four years before premature cracking of the steam tubes was observed. In October 1979, the plant was shut down through the end of the year for repairs.[14][15][16] The plant had an extended shutdown in 1984, with difficulty restarting.[17]

In the 1980 election, a ballot measure to ban construction of further nuclear power plants in the state without federally approved waste facilities was approved by the voters 608,412 (53.2%) to 535,049 (46.8%).[18] In 1986, a ballot measure initiated by Lloyd Marbet for immediate closure of the Trojan plant failed 35.7% yes to 64.3% no.[19] This proposal was resubmitted in 1990, and again in 1992 when a similar proposal (by Jerry and Marilyn Wilson) to close the plant was also included. Each measure was soundly defeated by vote margins over 210,000 votes.[20][21][22] Although all closure proposals were defeated, the plant operators committed to successively earlier closure dates for the plant.

The demolition of the 499-foot (152 m) cooling tower at 7:00 AM on May 21, 2006.

In 1992, PGE spent $4.5 million to successfully defeat ballot measures seeking to close Trojan immediately, rather than within four years, as PGE had planned.[23][24] At the time, it was the most expensive ballot measure campaign in Oregon history.[25] A week after the election, the Trojan plant suffered another steam generator tube leak of radioactive water, and was shut down.[26] It was announced that replacement of the steam generators would be necessary. In December 1992, documents were leaked from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission showing that staff scientists believed that Trojan might be unsafe to operate.[26] In early January 1993, PGE chief executive Ken Harrison announced the company would not try to restart Trojan.[27][28][29]

After 1993 decision not to restart

The spent fuel was transferred from cooling pools to 34 concrete and steel storage casks in 2003.[30]

The site in 2022. Site of the water cooling tower is in the foreground.

In 2005, the reactor vessel and other radioactive equipment were removed from the Trojan plant, encased in concrete foam, shrink-wrapped, and transported intact by barge along the Columbia River to Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, where it was buried in a pit and covered with 45 feet (14 m) of gravel, which made it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole.[31] It was awaiting transport to the Yucca Mountain Repository until that project was canceled in 2009.[32]

The iconic 499-foot-tall (152 m) cooling tower, visible from Interstate 5 in Washington and U.S. Route 30 in Oregon, was demolished in 2006 via dynamite implosion at 7:00 a.m. PDT on Sunday, May 21.[33][34] This event marked the first implosion of a cooling tower at a nuclear plant in the United States. Additional demolition work on the remaining structures continued through 2008. The central office building and the reactor building were demolished by Northwest Demolition and Dismantling[35] in 2008. Remaining are five buildings: two warehouses, a small building on the river side, a guard shack, and offices outside the secured facility. It is expected that demolition of the plant will cost approximately $230 million, which includes the termination of the plant possession-only license, conventional demolition of the building and continuing cost for storage of used nuclear fuel.

A number of the civil defence sirens that were originally installed within a 10-mile (16 km) radius of Trojan, to warn of an incident at the plant that could endanger the general public, continue to stand in the Washington cities of Longview, Kelso, and Kalama.[36] Some of the other sirens, which have been removed, have been repurposed as tsunami warning sirens along the Oregon coast.[37] While there are no plans to remove the remaining sirens, the city of Longview has removed a few of the sirens on an as-needed basis to make way for other projects.[38]

Trojan Heliport (FAA LID: 3OR7) was a 60 x 60 ft. (18 x 18 m) private turf heliport located at the power plant. It is no longer listed in the FAA website.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Trojan Nuclear Power Plant.

• Portland General Electric information about the plant (archived version of page from August 2008 available from archive.org)

• Trojan Park recreation guide

• Local television news coverage of the implosion from many different angles

• High Country News article providing some of the time line of the plant