03:36 PM PDT on Friday, May 12, 2006

Compiled by kgw.com Staff

The following is a list of factoids about the Trojan Power Plant in Rainier, Oregon:

- Trojan was Oregon’s only nuclear power plant. It operated for almost 17 years, from March 1976 to January 1993.

- It cost $450 million to build the plant.

- The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground.

- The plant was shut down in 1992 and became the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. It was shut down after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant.

- In 2001, during the decommissioning project, the 1,000 ton 1,130 megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole.

- Portland General Electric owns the Trojan nuclear plant and was responsible for its decommissioning.

- The cooling tower stands 500 feet tall and is located 50 miles east of Astoria and five miles south of Longview, WA at 71760 Columbia River Highway, Rainier OR, in Columbia County.

(The Center for Land Use Interpretation was a source for this information.)