• About
    • About Us
    • What We Cover
  • Advertise
    • Advertise
    • Our Advertisers
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Send News
  • Subscribe

Oak Ridge Today

  • Home
  • Sign in
  • News
    • Business
    • Community
    • Education
    • Government
    • Health
    • Police and Fire
    • U.S. Department of Energy
    • Weather
  • Sports
    • High School
    • Middle School
    • Recreation
    • Rowing
    • Youth
  • Entertainment
    • Arts
    • Dancing
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Television
    • Theater
  • Premium Content
  • Obituaries
  • Classifieds

 

Site prep could start this year for mercury treatment plant at Y-12

Posted at 10:02 am April 28, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Y-12 Mercury Treatment Facility

The Mercury Treatment Facility that will be at the east end of Y-12 National Security Complex could start operating in 2022. (Image by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

Note: This story was updated at 2 p.m.

Site preparation could start later this year for the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex as the U.S. Department of Energy prepares for demolition and cleanup work at the nuclear weapons plant.

DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM, expects to complete demolition and cleanup work at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site, in 2020. It will then focus on the large-scale demolition work at Y-12.

Among the Y-12 buildings that could be demolished are Alpha 4, Alpha 5, and Beta 4, all large buildings where mercury, a toxic metal, was once used. The buildings used mercury to separate lithium for nuclear weapons. The lithium separation operations started in 1955 and ended in 1963.

But before that cleanup work can begin, OREM needs the Mercury Treatment Facility. The plant was first announced at a press conference featuring U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, about four years ago, in May 2013.

“This water treatment plant is a major step in addressing one of the biggest problems we have from the Cold War era—mercury once used to make nuclear weapons getting into our waterways,” Alexander said at the time.

Earlier this month, Jay Mullis, acting manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said large-scale construction on the treatment plant could start in 2018, and it could begin operating in 2022. A video posted online by the DOE Oak Ridge Office said the plant is expected to reduce the mercury concentration in water leaving Y-12 through Upper East Fork Poplar Creek by 84 percent.

Advertisement

The Mercury Treatment Facility will have two parts. One is known as the Headworks Facility. It will be at Outfall 200 at Y-12. That’s where mercury contamination that originates in the West End Mercury Area at Y-12 enters Upper East Fork Poplar Creek after flowing through storm drains.

The second part of the plant, the Mercury Treatment Facility itself, will be on the east end of Y-12.

Mercury migrating from the mercury-contaminated area on the west end of Y-12 will enter the headworks facility at Outfall 200 and flow through piping to the Mercury Treatment Facility, where it will be treated. The treated water will then be fed into Upper East Fork Poplar Creek, which flows north out of Y-12 into central Oak Ridge.

Once the plant begins operating, OREM can start removing the large contaminated buildings at Y-12 and address the mercury in the soil and groundwater beneath, DOE said.

Officials said the mercury travels from west to east at Y-12, and the new plant will allow a large percentage of mercury to be captured before it travels off the site and into the environment.

The precise cost of the plant isn’t clear, but preliminary estimates have said it could range from $150 million to $300 million, Mullis said. The estimate could be refined later.

The Mercury Treatment Facility is one part of the next major phase of cleanup at the three federal sites in Oak Ridge that were built to help build atomic weapons during World War II as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The three sites—K-25 (now ETTP or Heritage Center), Y-12, and X-10 (now Oak Ridge National Laboratory)—had other missions after the war as well, although the K-25 site was shut down about three decades ago and is slowly being converted into an industrial park.

Other major steps in the cleanup process are to build the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, possibly west of Y-12, for onsite waste disposal from cleanup work at Y-12 and ORNL, and preparing more facilities for future demolition under the Excess Facilities Initiative.

Advertisement

In the video posted online, the DOE Oak Ridge Office said the need for the Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12 dates back to the nuclear weapons work at Y-12 in the 1950s and 1960s, when the plant used more than 20 million pounds of mercury. During that time, about 700,000 pounds of mercury were lost into buildings, soil, groundwater, and sediment.

When the soils and buildings have been disturbed in the past, they’ve released mercury, Mullis said during an April 12 annual community budget workshop.

The new Mercury Treatment Facility will help capture mercury that migrates from the buildings and soil when major demolition starts at Y-12. The treatment facility will also help DOE meet regulatory limits, DOE said in the online video.

The plant is being designed to treat up to 3,000 gallons per minute. It will also have a two-million-gallon storage tank for stormwater. A modular design will allow future modifications for more stormwater storage or operations that could allow more mercury reductions.

During the April 12 workshop, Mullis said the design for the Mercury Treatment Facility was completed a few months earlier by cleanup contractor UCOR and its contractor, and there was a department review a few weeks before the April 12 meeting. The design is now in a comments phase, with a final report possible in three to four weeks, Mullis said in mid-April.

The new water treatment plant will be on the south side of Y-12’s main production area, and officials expect to tear down another contaminated building, Alpha 2, as part of the cleanup work.

In 2013, Mark Whitney, who was then environmental management manager in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office, said mercury contamination at Y-12 is the greatest environmental risk on the Oak Ridge Reservation. He said remediation work began in the 1980s, and federal officials used about $250 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on the work and to help design the new water treatment plant.

Sue Cange, who was then deputy environmental management manager in the Oak Ridge Office, said the amount of mercury that flows into East Fork Poplar Creek varies, but the waterway generally has a concentration of about 400 parts per trillion. State water quality criteria call for a concentration of 51 parts per trillion or less, she said. It’s not clear if the water concentration has changed since then, and if so, by how much.

East Fork Poplar Creek starts at a spring at the Y-12 National Security Complex and flows through Oak Ridge before joining West Fork Poplar Creek at the former K-25 site, now known as East Tennessee Technology Park. It has been listed on a state list of impaired waterways due to mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, among other concerns.

ICYMI: New facility will pave the way for major demolition and cleanup at @y12nsc. https://t.co/4BPP6WCJPD

— DOE Oak Ridge Office (@OakRidgeOffice) February 14, 2017

Y-12 Mercury Treatment Facility_blureprint

The Mercury Treatment Facility that will be at the east end of Y-12 National Security Complex could start operating in 2022. (Image by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

Y-12 Mercury Treatment Facility Headworks2

The Headworks Facility that will be at Outfall 200 as part of the Mercury Treatment Facility that could start operating at the Y-12 National Security Complex in 2022. (Image by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

Advertisement



Y-12 Mercury Treatment Facility Headworks Facility

The Headworks Facility that will be at Outfall 200 as part of the Mercury Treatment Facility that could start operating at the Y-12 National Security Complex in 2022. (Image by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

See previous stories here:

  • Construction on Y-12 mercury treatment plant could start in 2018, cost $146 million
  • Cleanup work shifts to mercury as new Y-12 water treatment plant announced

More information will be added as it becomes available.


Do you appreciate this story or our work in general? If so, please consider a monthly subscription to Oak Ridge Today. See our Subscribe page here. Thank you for reading Oak Ridge Today.

Copyright 2017 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Filed Under: Front Page News, Oak Ridge Office, Slider, U.S. Department of Energy, Y-12, Y-12 National Security Complex Tagged With: Alpha 2, Alpha 4, Alpha 5, Beta 4, cleanup, demolition, DOE, East Fork Poplar Creek, East Tennessee Technology Park, Environmental Management Disposal Facility, Excess Facilities Initiative, Headworks Facility, Jay Mullis, K-25, K-25 site, Lamar Alexander, Mark Whitney, mercury, mercury contamination, Mercury Treatment Facility, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Office, Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, Oak Ridge Reservation, OREM, Outfall 200, Sue Cange, U.S. Department of Energy, water treatment plant, West End Mercury Area, X-10, Y-12, Y-12 National Security Complex

Advertisements

 



Join the club!

If you appreciate our work, please consider subscribing. Besides helping us, your subscription will give you access to our premium content.

Some of our stories are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our members—advertisers, subscribers, and sponsors.

But some are premium content, available only to members. Those are in-depth, investigative, or exclusive stories that are available only on Oak Ridge Today. They generally require significant time to report, write, and publish.

You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month.

You can read more about your options here.

We currently offer five primary subscription options to readers, and they include benefits.

Basic

  • Basic monthly subscription ($5 per month)—access premium content
  • Basic annual subscription ($60 per year)—access premium content

Pro

  • Pro monthly subscription ($10 per month)—access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month
  • Pro annual subscription ($100 per year)—save $20 per year, access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month

Temporary

  • Temporary access ($3 per week for two weeks)

We also have advanced subscription options. You can see them here.

We also accept donations. You can donate here.

If you prefer to send a check for a subscription or donation, you may do so by mailing one to:

Oak Ridge Today
P.O. Box 6064
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Thank you for your consideration and for reading Oak Ridge Today. We appreciate your support.

Commenting Guidelines

We welcome comments, but we ask you to follow a few guidelines:

1) Please use your real name, including last name. Please also use a valid e-mail address.
2) Be civil. Don't insult others, attack their character, or get personal.
3) Stick to the issues.
4) No profanity.
5) Keep your comments to a reasonable length and to a reasonable number per article.

We reserve the right to remove any comments that violate these guidelines. Comments held for review, usually from those posting for the first time, may not post if they violate these guidelines. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you also for reading Oak Ridge Today and for participating in the discussion.

More information is available here.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More U.S. Department of Energy News

SNS on hiatus for upgrade

The Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—already the world’s most powerful accelerator-based neutron source—will be on a planned hiatus through June 2024 as crews work to upgrade the … [Read More...]

Sholl named interim executive director of UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute

David Sholl, director of the Transformational Decarbonization Initiative at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been appointed interim executive director of the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute. His … [Read More...]

ORNL scientist to lead project studying permafrost thaw, climate processes in Alaska

Submitted Colleen Iversen—ecosystem ecologist, group leader, and distinguished staff scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—has been named director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Next-Generation Ecosystem … [Read More...]

DOE asks for public comment about ETTP groundwater decision

The U.S. Department of Energy has asked for public comment about a proposed plan to reduce groundwater contamination in the main plant area of East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site in west Oak … [Read More...]

Ken Tarcza joins ORAU as chief of staff

Ken Tarcza has joined Oak Ridge Associated Universities as chief of staff. Tarcza comes to ORAU after an impressive military and federal career, a press release said. A graduate of West Point, Tarcza spent his military … [Read More...]

More DOE

Recent Posts

  • SNS on hiatus for upgrade
  • County sees increase in infant deaths due to unsafe sleeping practices
  • ASAP of Anderson welcomes new executive director
  • Briceville Fire Department celebrates new station
  • Officers searching for suspect in fatal shooting
  • Oak Ridge to host movie premiere of ‘Oppenheimer’
  • Oak Ridge Schools to host panel discussion, documentary screening for ‘Oppenheimer’
  • Sam Bush to headline Summer Sessions concert
  • Anderson County government offices closed Monday, Tuesday
  • Oak Ridge Community Band performs on Independence Day

Search Oak Ridge Today

About Us

About Oak Ridge Today
What We Cover

How To

Advertise
Subscribe

Contact Us

Contact Oak Ridge Today

Copyright © 2023 Oak Ridge Today