The East Tennessee Technology Park is pictured above as it looked before most of the U-shaped K-25 building, center left, was demolished. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)
The FBI is investigating a report of a man possibly trespassing at the East Tennessee Technology Park on Thursday evening, but so far, they said, it doesn’t appear he posed any danger to the former uranium-enriching site.
“I can tell you right now that there is no indication that this incident involves any kind of threat to the facility or to national security,” said Marshall Stone, supervisory special agent in the Knoxville office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI is investigating the incident with help from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The East Tennessee Technology Park is also known as the former K-25 site. Located in west Oak Ridge, it was built during World War II to enrich uranium for atomic bombs as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. But the sprawling DOE site has been shut down for more than two decades, and it is slowly being converted into a massive industrial park.
Stone said he couldn’t comment on why the man was at ETTP on Thursday and couldn’t comment on whether he had a weapon or had climbed a fence to get onto federal property. Stone didn’t have information on the man’s age or the length of time he spent at ETTP.
But an investigation is under way, Stone said. The FBI has not made an arrest, and Stone said he is not aware of any other agencies making an arrest either.
Stone said it’s the first trespassing incident that he’s aware of at ETTP, but he’s relatively new to Tennessee.
Meanwhile, there have been three trespassing incidents involving five people at the Y-12 National Security Complex in the past year, including the July 28 security breach. Federal officials have responded to those incidents, in part, by installing a new fence at the front of the nuclear weapons plant.
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