Workers have finished cleaning up after demolishing the Low Intensity Test Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The work was done by cleanup contractor UCOR for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.
Workers finished the tearing down the Low Intensity Test Reactor and disposing rubble and debris last fall, achieving a federal environmental management priority that year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.
“However, the reactor vessel remained on the building’s footprint until it could be shipped for final disposition offsite,” DOE said in its “EM Update” newsletter.
Employees recently loaded the 30-foot-long, 37,600-pound vessel onto a truck and shipped it to a facility in Clive, Utah, for final disposition.
“Known as Building 3005, the reactor was built in 1949 as a criticality testing facility that used highly enriched fuel with water as a coolant,” DOE said. “It operated until 1968. Researchers used the reactor in numerous experiments through the years, and the core was often reconfigured to perform those experiments.”
UCOR characterized and sampled the reactor using multiple modeling software programs to develop the final characterization.
“That enabled employees to identify how to safely transport and dispose of the reactor,” DOE said.
“Completion of decontamination and transporting the reactor vessel for disposition is a big accomplishment that presented technical difficulties and a unique safety focus to finalize the cleanup at the Building 3005 site,” said UCOR Project Manager Greg McGinnis.
Workers backfilled the pit where the vessel was removed and completed repairs needed on the footprint, DOE said.
“Completing these final tasks are crucial to our ongoing efforts at ORNL,” said Acting ORNL Portfolio Federal Project Director Jim Daffron. “Clearing and backfilling this area gives our employees a staging area to support safe and efficient demolition for our next two major projects.”
Workers are deactivating the Graphite Reactor support facilities and the Oak Ridge Research Reactor. Those facilities are adjacent to the footprints of the Low Intensity Test Reactor and Bulk Shielding Reactor.
“These projects are continuing EM’s mission to eliminate risks and transform the heart of ORNL to enable future research missions and growth at the site,” DOE said.
“EM Update” Contributor: Carol Hendrycks
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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