Nuclear Reactor Begins Journey to Burial Site
Entombed in concrete and 6-inch steel, the 1,000-ton radioactive reactor of the largest U.S. nuclear power plant ever to be shut down was loaded onto a barge Friday for a 270-mile river journey skirting the northern edge of Portland.
It’s the first time a commercial reactor of this size--and level of contamination--will pass so near a major American city, according to officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency overseeing the decommissioning of the Trojan Nuclear Plant.
Even Portland General Electric, the utility that owns the reactor, which is headed for burial 45 feet deep on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, considers the river journey risky.
The Trojan Plant was closed in 1993, two decades earlier than planned, after a series of problems, including a faulty safety system that drew federal fines, the accidental release of radioactive gases and cracked steam tubes.
Hundreds of highly radioactive spent fuel rods remain at the plant awaiting a disposal site.
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