Oak Ridge Today

Graves Gap fire burned more than 300 acres

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The mountaintop fire at Graves Gap along Highway 116 in north Anderson County burned more than 300 acres this week, a state official said Thursday afternoon, Nov. 30, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The mountaintop fire at Graves Gap along Highway 116 in north Anderson County burned more than 300 acres this week, a state official said Thursday afternoon, Nov. 30, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

GRAVES GAP—The mountaintop fire at Graves Gap in north Anderson County burned more than 300 acres this week, a state official said Thursday afternoon.

The fire off New River Highway (Highway 116) burned about 377 acres, said Nathan Waters, assistant district forester in the Tennessee Division of Forestry Administration’s East Tennessee District.

It was officially called the Switchback Fire. Graves Gap is near the top of a mountain reached by a series of switchbacks on New River Highway. It is between Frost Bottom Road and Briceville Highway, which connect Oliver Springs and Briceville, and New River and Rosedale.

The cause of the Graves Gap fire is under investigation, Waters said. He wasn’t aware of any structures that were endangered, although there are homes and churches near the mountaintop. [Read more…]

One injured in rollover crash on Georgia Avenue

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One person was injured in a single-vehicle rollover crash on Georgia Avenue late Thursday afternoon, Nov. 30, 2017, authorities said. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

One person was injured in a single-vehicle rollover crash on Georgia Avenue late Thursday afternoon, Nov. 30, 2017, authorities said. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

One person was injured in a rollover crash on Georgia Avenue late Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

The single-vehicle crash was reported at about 4:30 p.m. Thursday in a curve on Georgia Avenue just up the hill from Big Ed’s Pizza. The red Isuzu Rodeo sport utility vehicle was upside down, resting on its roof in the middle of the road.

The injuries to the driver were described as non-life threatening. The name and age of the driver and the cause of the crash were not immediately available. [Read more…]

Anderson County woman could face federal charges in alleged mail theft

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Tina May Carroll

Tina May Carroll

 

After mail thefts had been reported in the area, an Anderson County deputy found about 150 pieces of U.S. mail from more than 40 different addresses in a pickup that he searched on Beets Valley Road on Wednesday, an incident report said.

The 32-year-old woman who was arrested in the case could now face federal charges, according to the incident report, which was from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Department.

Deputy Adam Warren responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle, a red 1989 Chevrolet Silverado pickup partially parked in the road on Beets Valley Road, at about 8 a.m. Wednesday. Beets Valley Road is west of Lake City Highway (US 25W) between Clinton and Rocky Top (the former Lake City).

As he approached the truck, Warren said he noticed several pieces of mail in the grass close to the driver’s side door. He saw a female, later identified as Tina May Carroll, asleep behind the wheel of the truck with the keys in the ignition, according to the incident report. [Read more…]

Roane County Commission to discuss Oak Ridge Airport on Thursday, Dec. 7

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Image via Billy Stair presentation at Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority General Aviation Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 15, 2017.

Image via Billy Stair presentation at Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority General Aviation Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 15, 2017.

 

The Roane County Commission will discuss the Oak Ridge Airport, which would be built at Heritage Center, the former K-25 site, during a workshop next week.

The workshop is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, December 7, in the Qualls Commission Room at the Roane County Courthouse.

Oak Ridge Today reported in March that there are additional steps and approvals required, but if all goes well, construction on the airport could start in late 2018 or early 2019.

The airport could still cost an estimated $35 million to $40 million, officials said at the time. It would be funded with a mix of federal funding, state aeronautical commission funding, and local funding from the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority, or MKAA.

The MKAA General Aviation Committee approved an airport layout plan during a meeting at McGhee Tyson Airport in Alcoa in March. The plan was going to be sent to the Federal Aviation Administration for review and approval after that meeting. The airport layout plan is a detailed document that includes runway lengths, approaches, runway ramps, and taxiways. [Read more…]

Forest fire northwest of Oliver Springs grew to 300 acres

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The forest fire reported on Big Brushy Mountain between Oliver Springs and Petros on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017, grew to 300 acres, and it was reported to have containment lines around it on Tuesday, Nov. 28. The fire is pictured above from State Route 62 near Back Petros Road on Monday, Nov. 27. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The forest fire reported on Big Brushy Mountain between Oliver Springs and Petros on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017, grew to 300 acres, and it was reported to have containment lines around it on Tuesday, Nov. 28. The fire is pictured above from State Route 62 near Back Petros Road on Monday, Nov. 27. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

PETROS—The forest fire reported between Oliver Springs and Petros on Sunday grew to 300 acres, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

Firefighters were reported to have containment lines around the fire, said Nathan Waters, assistant district forester in the Tennessee Division of Forestry Administration’s East Tennessee District.

The fire, about seven miles northwest of Oliver Springs and a few miles south of Petros, was reported at about 4 p.m. Sunday. On Monday, Waters said the cause was under investigation.

It hadn’t endangered any structures, Waters said Tuesday evening. [Read more…]

About half of uranium-233 waste shipped from Building 3019 at ORNL

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CEUSP Canister

At left is a picture of an actual 24-inch steel canister of waste from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Program. At right is a representation of the canister interior. (File photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Environmental Management)

About half of the uranium-233 waste stored in Building 3019 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been shipped to a disposal facility in Nevada.

The shipments were completed in August, said Jay Mullis, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

But federal officials were only recently able to announce the end of the shipments of the waste from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Program, or CEUSP. The waste contained radioisotopes of uranium from a 1960s research and development test of thorium and uranium reactor fuel at the Consolidated Edison Indian Point-1 reactor in New York. The test was sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The shipments were completed 10 months ahead of schedule, Mullis told the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board on Wednesday, November 8. The CEUSP waste had been treated and turned into a ceramic matrix. It was shipped from Building 3019 at ORNL, where it had been stored, to the Nevada National Security Site, a former nuclear weapons proving ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE started shipping the waste materials to the Nevada National Security Site in May 2015. [Read more…]

A great technical achievement, Molten Salt Reactor could be entombed

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The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory housed the reactor and offices for operating personnel. The facility was constructed in the 1950s for a nuclear aircraft project and was later expanded significantly and retrofitted to accommodate the MSRE. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory housed the reactor and offices for operating personnel. The facility was constructed in the 1950s for a nuclear aircraft project and was later expanded significantly and retrofitted to accommodate the MSRE. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

 

Note: This story was updated at 8:30 p.m.

Former director Alvin Weinberg once called it the greatest technical achievement at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was inspired by the campaign to build a nuclear-powered aircraft in the 1950s, and it was the first reactor to ever operate using uranium-233.

Now parts of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment that are too radioactively “hot” for humans could be entombed in concrete.

For now, the idea is only under study, and there is no guarantee that any part of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, a nuclear historic landmark that has been dormant for decades, will be entombed.

But it’s one of the proposals being evaluated by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. The goal is to finish the evaluation by the end of the year.

Jay Mullis, manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, presented the proposal to the Oak Ridge City Council and Site Specific Advisory Board in two separate meetings earlier this month. The entombment proposal is one of five items being evaluated as part of a 45-day review started by DOE’s Environmental Management, or EM, program in June. [Read more…]

Three people escape house fire on Northwestern

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Three people escaped with no injuries from a house fire on Northwestern Avenue early Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017, authorities said. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Three people escaped with no injuries from a house fire on Northwestern Avenue early Sunday, Nov. 26, 2017, authorities said. The Oak Ridge Fire Department and Oak Ridge Police Department both responded. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Three people escaped with no injuries from a house fire on Northwestern Avenue in the Woodland neighborhood early Sunday, authorities said.

An adult male and two juveniles were home at the time of the fire, and all three escaped, said Eric Rackard, Oak Ridge Fire Department battalion chief.

The fire was reported near the intersection with Nasson Lane just after midnight Sunday.

The cause is under investigation, Rackard said. [Read more…]

Accepting state grant for Blankenship Field means it must be open to public

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Blankenship Field Overall Plan

An overall view of the proposed renovation of Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium. (File image from April 2015)

 

Accepting a state grant of $480,000 for Blankenship Field, primarily for synthetic turf, means that the facilities must be open to the public.

But there could be exceptions for previously scheduled events that are coordinated through the Oak Ridge school system.

Keeping the facilities open is part of an operational agreement with Oak Ridge Schools that was amended in a 7-0 vote by Oak Ridge City Council on Monday, November 13.

“The important thing is that it’s just not locked up,” Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson told City Council during that meeting. Residents have to be able to use the property.

Watson said there will be a bathroom available, and the facilities will be open sunrise to sunset. There could be field rentals, Watson said. [Read more…]

City acceptance of Main Street roads triggers $1.5 million in funding for work

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Main Street West is pictured above at Main Street Oak Ridge on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Main Street West is pictured above at Main Street Oak Ridge on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The city’s acceptance of three rebuilt roads at Main Street Oak Ridge triggered $1.5 million in funding for the public improvement work.

The Oak Ridge City Council unanimously agreed to accept the roads—Main Street East, Main Street West, and Wilson Street—in a 7-0 vote on Monday, November 13.

The developer, TN Oak Ridge Rutgers LLC, which is affiliated with RealtyLink of Greenville, South Carolina, has certified $1.84 million worth of public improvements to the three roads. Most of that, or $1.28 million of it, was for asphalt, base, earthwork, demolition, storm and “wet utilities,” among other work, according to a letter to Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson from Manager Phillip J. Wilson.

The next largest portion of the costs, roughly $320,000, was for electrical work. There were also land costs of $179,000, according to Wilson’s letter to Watson. [Read more…]

ORNL names director of artificial intelligence

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David Womble

David Womble

 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has hired David Womble, a leader in high-performance computing and former executive at Sandia National Laboratories, to direct its artificial intelligence work.

Womble began as AI Program Director on October 30, a press release said. AI stands for artificial intelligence.

Womble’s responsibilities include guiding ORNL’s AI and machine learning strategy for high-performance computing, ensuring broad scientific impacts to the missions of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and providing long-range program planning and project leadership, the press release said.

“In more than three decades in computing, Womble has won two R&D100 awards and the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize, awarded each year ‘to recognize outstanding achievement in high-performance computing,'” the press release said. [Read more…]

Ray Smith receives DOE Gold Medal Award for helping to create national park

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D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, left, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, left, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

 

Note: This story was updated at 4:05 p.m.

D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge.

The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Smith is retiring this month. He previously told Oak Ridge Today that he would retire November 22.

Established in November 2015, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park is a unique three-site park that includes Oak Ridge; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. Among other activities, Oak Ridge built uranium enrichment facilities for the Manhattan Project at Y-12 and the former K-25 site, and the city had the pilot facility for plutonium production at the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was then known as X-10. [Read more…]