01:52 PM PDT on Thursday, May 11, 2006

Compiled by kgw.com Staff

The process of decommissioning the Trojan Nuclear Plant took about nine years.

Decommissioning is the process of removing the radioactive material and then restoring the site for other uses.

Trojan began decommissioning in earnest in spring of 1996. Crews completed the work in December of 2004.

The site now meets Federal standards for residual radioactivity.

The regulations require that a person living or working on the site will receive no more than 25 millirem of radiation per year in excess of normal background. The regulations further require PGE to clean the site so that the level of residual radiation is "as low as reasonably achievable" (the "ALARA" standard).

A millirem is a unit of radiation. For reference, an average person in the U.S. receives between 200 and 300 millirem per year from a combination of cosmic radiation, natural background and medical or industrial sources.

PGE was able to offer evidence that the site meets necessary standards.

Between 2001 and 2005, experts measured the entire plant site for residual contamination in a process called a "final survey." Regulators from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and from the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) inspected and reviewed the final survey and the NRC has also done some confirmatory surveys.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees decommissioning at the federal level. At the state level, the Siting Council and ODOE oversee decommissioning through a program of reviews and approvals.

PGE built Trojan on what was an already an industrial site before PGE bought it. Now that decommissioning is complete, the site is safe for any type of use, including industrial, commercial or even residential.

(The State of Oregon Energy Department was the source for this article.)