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US

Defunct reactor on way to Washington state burial

August 9, 1999
Web posted at: 1:02 p.m. EDT (1702 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

RICHLAND, Washington -- A decommissioned, 1,000-ton nuclear reactor vessel reached a radioactive waste storage site in Washington state on Monday, the day before its scheduled burial.

After a voyage up the Columbia River to the port of Benton, the dismantled reactor was mounted Sunday on a 16-axle trailer with 320 wheels to support its enormous weight.

From there, it began a 30-mile journey on land -- partially on a public highway -- to the federal Hanford Nuclear Reservation, hauled by two enormous trucks traveling about 5 mph.

It took about 36 hours for tugs to bring the vessel, emptied of its uranium fuel, up 270 miles of river from the dismantled Trojan Nuclear Plant west of Portland, Oregon. That included a two-hour precautionary stop early Sunday at Pasco to wait for daylight on the last 10-mile stretch.

"It went very well," said Steve Nichols, project manager for Portland General Electric, the utility decommissioning the largest commercial reactor ever taken offline in the United States. "It's been very routine."

The river voyage past Portland made it the first commercial reactor of that size and level of contamination to pass so near a major U.S. city, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

No demonstrators were on hand when the barge docked at Benton, part of a region of south-central Washington that has been closely tied to nuclear development since World War II.

Instead, a handful of onlookers brought families, pets and video cameras to watch from a bluff overlooking the river.

"There's procedure after procedure, a backup plan for this. And I'm not afraid," one woman said.

PGE already had shipped Trojan's contaminated steam generators upriver to Hanford since 1995, and the Navy often ships reactors from submarines and cruisers up the Columbia for burial at the site.

Although it no longer contains its uranium fuel, the Trojan reactor vessel contains 15 times as much radioactivity as those objects, according to state officials.

However, after being filled with concrete and encased in 6-inch-thick steel, the reactor was considered safe for shipment. Workers handling it wear no more protection than a hard hat.

The Trojan plant operated for 16 years, generating enough electricity to supply all of Portland.

It was shut down in 1993, two decades earlier than planned, after a series of problems, including a faulty safety system that drew federal fines, an accidental release of radioactive gases and cracked steam tubes.

Nearly 800 spent but highly radioactive uranium fuel rod assemblies removed from the reactor over the years remain in storage at the Trojan site.

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



RELATED STORY:
Radioactive reactor taking risky journey past Portland
August 7, 1999

RELATED SITES:
U.S. Department of Energy - Hanford Home Page
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Portland General Electric
Department of Consumer and Business Services - Oregon Office of Energy Web Site
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