Oak Ridge junior defensive back Herbert Booker (13) tackles West junior wide receiver Jackson Snodgrass (11) on Blankenship Field on Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. (Photo by Luther Simmons)
Here are photos by Luther Simmons from the Oak Ridge football game at home on Blankenship Field against West on Friday, September 15. Oak Ridge won 23-13. It was the third win of the season, out of five games total, and the second region win of two played. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge junior wide receiver Kai’Reese Pendergrass (12) is pictured above at Farragut on Friday, Sept. 8, 2017. (Photo by Luther Simmons)
Here are photos by Luther Simmons from the Oak Ridge football game at Farragut on Friday, September 8. Oak Ridge was shut out 41-0. It was the third non-region game and the fourth game of the season. [Read more…]
Pictured above is Oak Ridge senior quarterback Johnny Stewart (2) at Dobyns-Bennett in Kingsport on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. (Photo by Allen Greene Photography)
Here are photos by Allen Greene Photography from the Oak Ridge and Dobyns-Bennett football game in Kingsport on Friday, August 25. Oak Ridge lost 28-25 in this non-region game, the second of the season. [Read more…]
Justin Bailey (File photo courtesy Oliver Springs Fire Department)
The explosion in Oliver Springs on Sunday that rattled windows and shook homes as far away as Oak Ridge was caused by gasoline poured on what was left of a barn that had been leveled and then ignited, the fire chief said Friday.
Oliver Springs Fire Chief Justin Bailey said firefighters don’t know for sure how much gasoline was used, but the property owner had at least a five-gallon gas can.
There was still a strong odor of gasoline when emergency responders arrived, Bailey said.
The explosion was reported on Tri County Boulevard at Mahoney Road on Sunday evening, just before it got dark, in a field across from Lee’s Market in south Oliver Springs, just down the hill from Oak Ridge.
The property owner had leveled the barn, and only natural wood remained, Bailey said. The property owner was allowed to burn the untreated wood with a permit, and he had received a burn permit from City Hall over the phone. [Read more…]
A section of New River Highway, also known as Highway 116, is pictured above between Briceville and Rosedale in November 2012, when the Graves Gap wildfire was reported on a mountain east of the highway (to the right in the photo above). (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Two Anderson County commissioners have planned a mountain drive on Tuesday that they say will again show the need for guardrails along Highway 116, also known as New River Highway, in north Anderson County.
The commissioners, Tim Isbel and Shain Vowell, represent District Four in Anderson County. That district includes Briceville and Rosedale, among other parts of mountainous north Anderson County.
They have scheduled a meeting with a representative of the Tennessee Department of Transportation at about 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, September 26, at the Anderson County Career and Technical Center beside the Anderson County High School. The purpose is to explain the need for the guardrails, the commissioners said in an email forwarded to other county commissioners, county officials, and the media. [Read more…]
Jeff Smith
Note: This story was updated at 1:30 p.m.
Jeff Smith, deputy director for operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been nominated to serve on the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors, officials said Thursday.
The nomination by President Donald Trump was announced by the White House.
U.S. senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both Tennessee Republicans, supported Smith’s nomination in statements on Thursday. [Read more…]
Green Meadow Country Club in Alcoa is pictured above. (Photo courtesy Green Meadow Country Club)
Four Oak Ridgers are scheduled to play in the Region 2-AAA golf tournament next week.
There are two Oak Ridgers in the boys’ high school golf tournament and two in the girls’ tournament. The boys are John Estep and Jacob Parton, and the girls are Susan Henderson and Keyanna Thompson, according to schedules posted online by Bearden High School Golf.
The boys’ tournament starts at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, September 26, on the number one tee at Green Meadow Country Club in Alcoa, and the girls’ tournament begins at the same time, 8:30 a.m., at the number 10 tee. [Read more…]
Doug Kothe
A collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration has named a new director of the project to build computing systems that are at least 50 times faster than the nation’s most powerful supercomputers in use today—and the new director will be based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The collaborative project is the Exascale Computing Project. It’s a collaboration between DOE’s Office of Science and the NNSA, which is a semi-autonomous agency within DOE.
The new director is Doug Kothe, a 32-year veteran of DOE’s national laboratory system who most recently served in ORNL’s Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate and as the applications development lead for the Exascale Computing Project, or ECP. For the preceding five years, he led the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, DOE’s first Energy Innovation Hub, which uses supercomputers to improve nuclear reactor performance.
Kothe will be ECP director effective October 1. He will replace Paul Messina, who is stepping down after two years to return to Argonne National Laboratory, a press release said. [Read more…]
The Jack Case Center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. (Photo courtesy NNSA)
Award-winning energy efficiency upgrades at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge have saved more than $538,000 per year in energy expenses, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Y-12 has used energy savings performance contracts to enhance its building infrastructure, DOE said. That included a major project in fiscal year 2016 to modernize 11,450 lighting fixtures in 123 facilities. The upgrades improved lighting conditions in more than 1.5 million square feet of work space, reduced electricity use by 36 billion Btu (British thermal units) per year, and saved more than $538,000 annually in energy costs, DOE said.
“Y-12’s innovative lighting design included de-lamping efforts to eliminate unneeded lighting, and used reflectors and optimized light levels to improve security, safety, and productivity,” DOE said. “The installation team also developed an innovative, streamlined lock-out/tag-out procedure—a critical safety step that normally can add significant amounts of time to a project of this size—and installed quick-connects on individual fixtures that allowed each fixture to be disconnected from power at the fixture location. These innovations enabled completion of the project two months ahead of schedule, with savings estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars due to reduced future preventive maintenance during re-lamping and ballast replacements.” [Read more…]
The planned Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. (Image courtesy UCOR/U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)
Note: This story was last updated at 2:30 p.m.
UCOR, the federal government’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge, has awarded a $1.4 million contract to a Knoxville company for early site preparation activities for the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, and the work could start in November.
GEM Technologies of Knoxville will perform the work for the new Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12, UCOR said in a press release Tuesday.
UCOR is also known as URS | CH2M Oak Ridge LLC.
Under the contract, GEM Technologies will perform limited demolition of existing abandoned utilities and the extension of new utilities—including electrical power, water, sewer, and storm drains—to the treatment facility sites, the press release said. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge freshman Katelyn Mattus (13) is pictured above at Farragut on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017. (Photo by Luther Simmons)
Here are photos by Luther Simmons from the Oak Ridge girls’ soccer game at Farragut on Wednesday. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge City Council is pictured above in December 2016. (Photo courtesy City of Oak Ridge)
The Oak Ridge City Council will consider a $14.3 million initial debt resolution in a special meeting on Tuesday.
The debt could include about $5.87 million for projects known as ESCO Projects that appear to be related to energy-efficiency projects in the city and its school system; $4.1 million for software, including for financial management and utility billing; $3.4 million for a replacement and upgrade of the radio system used primarily by the city’s police and fire departments; and $1 million mostly for design and engineering costs for the Oak Ridge Preschool and Senior Center.
If it’s adopted, the initial debt resolution, which calls for issuing up to $14.3 million in general obligation bonds, will be published in the newspaper. That will start a 20-day period in which at least 10 percent of registered voters in Oak Ridge can petition for a referendum on issuing the debt.
The bond resolution for issuing the debt would come before City Council for possible adoption at a regular meeting on Monday, October 9. [Read more…]
