An unused nuclear power plant became home to a world-class acoustics lab

Summary

It’s kind of impossible to grasp the enormity of a cooling tower until it’s suddenly right next to you. Never used for their intended purpose, the cooling towers of Washington Nuclear Projects 3 and 5 (WNP-3 and WNP-5) loom over treetops as I drive up to Satsop Business Park, about an hour and a half outside of Seattle. This abandoned nuclear power plant — a strange mix of massive concrete structures in various states of completion — has been repurposed as an advanced acoustics testing facility. I visited Satsop on a drizzly day in March to meet Ron Sauro, owner and operator of NWAA Labs. Sound-dampening construction materials, noisy washing machines, even the crew cabin of an airplane — these are all things that have passed through the doors of his lab. When companies need to verify how much sound their products make — or how well they dampen sound — they call Ron. I meet him in the parking lot just outside his office and follow him past a sign that states, in no uncertain terms, that I’m entering the premises at my own risk. I make my way into the finished but never-used auxiliary building that would have housed WNP-3’s nuclear reactor.The auxiliary building that would have housed WNP-3’s reactor is now home to NWAA Labs.It’s unfortunate that the Washington Public Power Supply System, or WPPSS, chose a name with an acronym that so easily translates to “whoops!” Construction started on WNP-3 and WNP-5, twin nuclear power plants on the same site, in 1977. They ran over budget, and the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979 put a damper on everyone’s enthusiasm for nuclear energy. By 1982, both projects were mothballed, even though WNP-3 was nearly complete. WPPSS tried to find a buyer in the ’90s, but nobody was in the market for a defunct nuclear power plant. The buildings and land wound up in the hands of the Port of Grays Harbor, which now maintains it as Satsop Business Park. It has hosted film productions, an Overstock.com call center (now closed), and, at one p...