Trojan in Twilight: History

History of the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

In 1967, Portland General Electric selected the site for a new power plant in the state of Oregon. The 634-acre site was on the banks of the Columbia River in Columbia County, 42 miles north of Portland, between the small towns of Prescott and Goble, and 4 miles from the town of Rainier. Three miles away, on the Washington side of the river, was the town of Kalama.

This site held an ancient Native American burial ground and was noted by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as native fishing grounds as they sailed down the Columbia River. More recently, the site had been producing explosives: gun powder and dynamite for the Trojan Powder Works. This previous tenant would unknowingly lend its name to the to the new, modern facility that would rise here in its place: the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant.

Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Cooling Tower

On February 1, 1970, construction began on Oregon's first, and only, nuclear power plant. By May of 1972, the plant's 499-foot cooling tower was complete. The height of the tower had been carefully selected; one foot taller, and the tower would have required red and white stripes painted on it.

Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

Portland General Electric planned to bring the plant online in September 1974, but this was delayed by setbacks during construction. The 950-ton, 1,130-megawatt pressurized water reactor, the largest such reactor ever built at the time, first achieved criticality on December 15, 1975. The plant was connected to the power grid on December 23. Commercial operation began on May 20, 1976. The plant had a 35-year license, which would allow it to potentially remain in operation until 2011. At the time, Trojan made up a quarter of Oregon's power generation when operating at capacity. The Trojan Nuclear Power Plant cost $450 million to construct.

I could explain in detail how a nuclear power plant works, but Howstuffworks.com already did.
How Nuclear Power Plants Work at Howstuffworks.com

Recreation Lake at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

Of the 634 acres on which Trojan sat, Portland General Electric set aside 140 acres to be used as public recreation areas or remain as natural wetlands. The most significant of these is the 29-acre Recreation Lake, a man-made pond that is filled with water coming from Nice Creek on its way to empty into the Columbia River by way of Carr Slough. The Recreation Lake, which PGE stocks with fish and is frequented by ducks and geese, and the grounds surrounding it are maintained by PGE and kept open to the general public as the 75-acre Trojan Park.

Reflection Lake at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant

Just north of the Recreation Lake is the 26-acre Reflection Lake, another man-made pond, only unlike the Recreation Lake, which appears to have a natural shape, the Reflection Lake is perfectly rectangular. Trojan's Visitors Information Center was built on the edge of the Reflection Lake, and when viewed from the Visitors Information Center, the power plant was reflected in the waters of the lake. North of the Reflection Lake is a natural wetlands known as Shallow Lake, which is home to many wetland species including the Whistling Swan.

Trojan Nuclear Power Plant across Shallow Lake

Click here for more about the Trojan Wetlands.

Area Map

Despite the fact that nuclear power plants generate far less pollution than coal or oil plants, and that the average person is exposed to more radiation from everyday sources than they would be from living near a nuclear power plant, Trojan was never popular with environmentalist groups, and a number of protests, led by Lloyd Marbet, were staged at the entrance to the site, often resulting in protestors being arrested. Trojan was closed for nine months in 1978, to correct errors made during construction, and to improve the plant's resistance to potential earthquakes caused by a previously unknown fault line. In 1979, the motion picture The China Syndrome was released, unrealistically depicting a fictional nuclear power plant suffering a reactor meltdown & releasing molten nuclear fuel into the earth. (TRIVIA: The control room of the power plant in The China Syndrome was actually based off of Trojan's control room, which the creators of the movie visited.) On March 28, 1979, 12 days after the release of The China Syndrome, the accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania occurred. Although the Three Mile Island incident actually proved that the fictional events depicted in The China Syndrome were impossible, the movie benefited from the news coverage of Three Mile Island. All of these factors led to Oregon voters approving a ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants in the state in 1980.

Click here to see the Nuclear Energy Institute's Critique of The China Syndrome.

Though Oregon's voters had decided they didn't want any new nuclear plants, the voters never closed Trojan. Attempts by Marbet and other environmental activists to close Trojan were defeated by the voters in 1986, 1990 and 1992. Portland General Electric spent over $5 million to defeat the 1992 ballot measure, still the most expensive ballot measure campaign in Oregon state history. On November 9, 1992, one week after the ballot measure was defeated in the general election, a steam generator tube leak forced Trojan to shut down. Portland General Electric determined that the cost to fully repair the plant was not economical in comparison to electricity generated from other sources (most, if not all, of Trojan's electricity was sold to markets in California; Oregon's own needs were being met mostly by hydroelectric dams) and announced on January 4, 1993 that Trojan would remain shut down permanently, and all nuclear fuel was removed from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel storage pool. After fighting hard to keep the plant open, PGE would willingly close it less than halfway through its anticipated lifespan. In May 1993, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission changed PGE's license for Trojan to a possession-only license, officially ending the plant's operation.

With Trojan closed for good, the economy of the surrounding area would suffer, especially in nearby Rainier. Not only was Rainier the home to many Trojan employees who would now be forced to find work elsewhere, but the city's police department, fire department and school district had been supported largely by the tax revenue from the plant. In the coming years, the police department would be reduced to buying used police cars, the fire department would combine with the fire department in nearby St. Helens to be able to replace aging equipment, and the school district would close three schools, consolidating entirely into the Hudson Park Elementary & Rainier High School built when Trojan first opened in the 1970s.

How long did Trojan operate?

Trojan operated for about 17 years. The exact length of Trojan's operation depends on what dates are used for the beginning and end of operation.

Possible Start Dates
December 15, 1975: Reactor achieves first criticality
May 20, 1976: Commercial operation begins

Possible End Dates
November 9, 1992: Plant shuts down
January 4, 1993: PGE announces plant will not restart
May 1993: License changed to possession-only

Depending on how you calculate it, the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant operated anywhere from about 16.5 years to 17.5 years. Commercial operation lasted about 16.5 years, while the reactor was in operation for just over a month short of 17 years. The plant's license for commercial operation was effective for almost exactly 17 years.

Trojan Decommissioning

As the local economy suffered, PGE moved forward in decommissioning Trojan. While waiting for the NRC to approve the complete decommissioning plan, PGE removed Trojan's four steam generators and pressurizer in November 1995. This was known as the Large Component Removal Project. The steam generators were each 14.5 feet in diameter and 68 feet long. The pressurizer was 8.5 feet in diameter and 53 feet long. These items were transported by barge up the Columbia River to the Department of Energy's low-level nuclear waste disposal facility at Hanford near Richland, Washington. In April 1996, the NRC approved PGE's complete decommissioning plan. The total cost of decommissioning Trojan was estimated at $429 million.

Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Containment Building as viewed from Kalama, Washington, showing the opening through which the reactor was removed.

In August 1999, the reactor was removed from the Containment Building for transport to the Hanford low-level disposal facility near Richland. An early proposal suggested cutting the 950-ton reactor vessel, which measured 42 feet long and 17 feet in diameter, into smaller pieces to be transported by truck though Portland and down Interstate 84. This proposal was rejected in favor of transporting the reactor vessel intact by barge up the Columbia River. The reactor vessel was filled with concrete and covered in steel, bringing the total weight to 1,020 tons. It was loaded on the barge on Friday, August 6, and taken to Hanford over the weekend, where it was buried in a 45-foot-deep trench on August 11, where it remains today. This movement was known as the Reactor Vessel and Internals Removal (RVAIR) Project, and was awarded the International Project of the Year by the Project Management Institute in September 2000. Trojan's reactor was the largest commercial reactor ever decommissioned in the United States at the time.

Photos of the reactor vessel being moved can be found here. There are a few in here too.

When Trojan closed, a total of 781 spent fuel rod assemblies were in the spent fuel storage pool. Eventually, these highly radioactive fuel rods are to be moved to the future Federal Nuclear Waste Repository, which is expected to be established at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, these rods had to be removed from the spent fuel pool to complete decommissioning. To provide a secure place to store these rods, PGE built a thick concrete pad measuring 170' x 105' at the northeast corner of the Trojan site, about 900 feet north of the cooling tower, surrounded with two sets of barbed-wire fences, floodlights and full security monitoring. This is the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), or dry cask storage facility. Beginning in December 2002, the spent fuel rods were removed from the spent fuel pool and loaded into welded stainless steel canisters. The canisters were then placed into one of 34 concrete casks with 29-inch thick walls, and moved to the ISFSI. Transfer of the spent fuel rods to the ISFSI was completed in September 2003.

By October 2004, PGE had completed the decommissioning plan and requested that the State of Oregon release the site for unrestricted use. The Final Site Survey was completed in December 2004, and a request for license termination was submitted to the NRC. In April 2005, the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council determined that the site met the criteria for unrestricted use, and on May 23, 2005, the NRC terminated Trojan's license, releasing the Trojan site for unrestricted use. Decommissioning was officially complete, and demolition of the power plant's buildings could begin. Demolition of the Turbine Building, Control Building, Auxiliary Building and Fuel Building, collectively known as the Power Block, began in March 2006 and will be completed in 2007. The 499-foot Cooling Tower was demolished by implosion at 7am on May 21, 2006, 30 years and one day after Trojan began commercial operation. It was the first cooling tower to be imploded in the United States and the largest yet imploded in the world. The dome-shaped Containment Building is scheduled for demolition in 2008.

Because of the ISFSI, the Trojan site is not completely free of nuclear material, and PGE will maintain a presence there for many years to come. The ISFSI operates under a separate license from the NRC. Because there is still no federal nuclear waste depository, the first shipment from the Trojan ISFSI is not expected until at least 2013, and full decommissioning of the ISFSI is not expected until 2024. PGE still maintains an electrical switching station at Trojan. This station has recently been expanded with an additional line to serve the new 400-megawatt power plant at Port Westward, about 15 miles from Trojan. In addition, although PGE's attempts to donate Trojan Park to the State of Oregon or Columbia County have failed, PGE continues to maintain the park and keep it open to the general public.

The Simpsons Connection

A side note about the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant is the widespread belief that it directly inspired the fictional Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer Simpson's place of employment on The Simpsons. This belief stems from the fact that Simpsons creator Matt Groening is a native of Portland, and many of the characters are named after streets in Portland (such as Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Mayor Quimby & Sideshow Bob Terwilliger) or other places in Oregon (like, say, Rainier Wolfcastle). Matt Groening has never confirmed this, and in 2006, as Trojan's cooling tower was being prepared for demolition, Groening's publicist made a statement that the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant was not based on any particular real power plant. Also, the Springfield power plant is depicted with two reactors and two cooling towers, where Trojan has only one of each. However, it is still possible that even if Trojan was not the basis for the Springfield plant, the fact that Trojan existed and was in the news around the time Groening created The Simpsons may have at least given Groening the idea.

Coincidentally, the date that the cooling tower was imploded, Sunday, May 21, 2006, was also the air date of the of the 17th season finale of The Simpsons. The Trojan Nuclear Power Plant had operated for about 17 years.

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