There is a public meeting about the Environmental Management Disposal Facility in Oak Ridge tonight (Wednesday, November 7).
The meeting is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. in the New Hope Center auditorium at the Y-12 National Security Complex on Scarboro Road. Presentations are expected to begin around 6:30 p.m., and a question and comment period could start around 7:15 p.m. [Read more…]
There is a public availability session on the proposed federal landfill in Oak Ridge on Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a proposed plan to build a new landfill on the Oak Ridge Reservation. The landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, would be in Bear Creek Valley west of the Y-12 National Security Complex. It is intended for disposal of radioactive, hazardous, and toxic wastes. It would be used as cleanup work ends at the East Tennessee Technology Park and the existing landfill, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility fills up, and cleanup work moves to Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
A press release said the Sierra Club has invited state and federal officials from DOE, Environmental Protection Agency, and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to be available for public questions about the Environmental Management Disposal Facility. The public availability session has been scheduled from 2 to 8 p.m. Thursday, October 11, at the TDEC office at 761 Emory Valley Road in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]
The K-25 “footprint,” the area where the K-25 Building used to be in west Oak Ridge, is pictured above at the East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. The white K-1600 Building is pictured in the middle of the “footprint.” The brick building in the foreground is Oak Ridge Fire Station No. 4, and it includes the K-25 History Center. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)
Centrus Energy Corporation has a $15 million project to prepare K-1600, a building in the middle of the historic K-25 “footprint,” for demolition.
On Tuesday, Centrus announced that it had received a work authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy for decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) work at the building. The work will include removing and disposing of equipment and materials to make K-1600 non-radiologically contaminated and non-possessing (i.e. unclassified), a press release said. The work will occur between October 1, 2018, and September 30, 2019.
After the work is completed, DOE will be able to turn over K-1600 to a contractor to demolish it, the press release said. It’s one of the last remaining “legacy structures” on the 2,200-acre site of the World War II-era K-25 uranium enrichment plant, now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park, the press release said.
Many other buildings have been demolished there, including the five large gaseous diffusion buildings once used to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants. ETTP is now being converted into a large industrial park in west Oak Ridge. [Read more…]
You can comment on the proposed new federal landfill in Bear Creek Valley during a public information session in Oak Ridge today (Thursday, September 13).
The landfill would be called the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, and it would be 2.2 million cubic yards on land owned by the federal government. It would be used by the U.S. Department of Energy to dispose of waste from the Oak Ridge Reservation.
The public information session is scheduled from 4:30-6 p.m. Thursday at the DOE Information Center in east Oak Ridge at 1 Science.gov Way. The meeting is hosted by DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
The purpose of the meeting is to share information about the proposed plan and hear public comments, according to a public notice sent to Oak Ridge Today on Wednesday afternoon. [Read more…]
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management now has a powerful, trailer-mounted vacuum for cleaning and maintaining the important liquid and gaseous waste operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy DOE EM)
Federal site cleanup workers reported in August that they had begun removing contaminated sludge and debris from tanks, sumps, and valve boxes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s liquid and gaseous waste operations using a powerful, new trailer-mounted vacuum.
The equipment has already enhanced safety and operational efficiency, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.
“Without the vacuum, personnel would be required to fully dress in personal protective equipment and remove the sludge and debris with shovels and buckets,” DOE said. “In addition to being closer to contaminated materials in confined spaces, workers would face an increased chance of slips and falls while climbing in and out of slippery areas in the protective suits.”
Using the vacuum technology has eliminated the risk of heat stress for employees, who would otherwise perform manual labor in protective suits during the hot Tennessee summer, DOE said. [Read more…]
Crews began tearing down Building K-633 at the East Tennessee Technology Park in May 2018 and completed the project in June. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management)
One of the most contaminated buildings left at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site, has been demolished, federal officials said.
Demolition crews began tearing down Building K-633, which was once used to evaluate uranium enrichment equipment, in May and completed the project in June, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management.
The work was done by the Oak Ridge environmental management, or EM, program and its cleanup contractor URS|CH2M Oak Ridge, or UCOR.
“This project eliminates one of the most contaminated remaining buildings at the East Tennessee Technology Park,” DOE said.
Building K-633—the K-633 Test Loop Facility—is the fourth building Oak Ridge’s EM program has removed from ETTP’s Poplar Creek area since last year, DOE said. [Read more…]
Federal officials have already approved the need for a new Lithium Production Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and in May 2018, they said it could be built on the east side of the 811-acre plant, possibly where the Biology Complex, the brick building at center, is now. The east side of Y-12 is pictured above from Scarboro Road on Sunday, May 20, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
Federal officials have already approved the need for a new Lithium Production Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and this month, they said it could be built on the east side of the 811-acre plant, possibly where the Biology Complex is now.
Current plans call for demolishing the Biology Complex. Officials had recently been saying that removing buildings from that complex would allow the area to be used for “modern national defense missions.” But it hadn’t been clear what those missions might be.
On May 12, Steven Wyatt, public affairs manager for the National Nuclear Security Administration Production Office, confirmed that the Lithium Production Facility could be built there. Y-12 is a NNSA site.
“We are in the early stages of planning for the Lithium Production Capability that is needed to replace the aging and obsolete 9204-2 building,” Wyatt said. “We are reviewing options for constructing a facility in the eastern portion of the Y-12 site, including the area of the Biology Complex.” [Read more…]
Submitted photo
Carolyn Krause, a newspaper contributor and former editor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will discuss mercury in Oak Ridge at a meeting tonight (Thursday, May 17).
Krause’s talk is titled “Oak Ridge’s Mercury Saga: A History of Mercury Contamination in Oak Ridge and the Public and Scientific Response.”
The talk is hosted by the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association. It is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Midtown Community Center (formerly the Wildcat Den) at 102 Robertsville Road.
“On May 17, 1983, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it had ‘lost’ or could not account for 2.4 million pounds of mercury in the Oak Ridge environment as a result of lithium production for a U.S. thermonuclear weapons program,” a press release said. [Read more…]
Jay Mullis
You can learn about the progress being made in the cleanup of federal sites in Oak Ridge on Wednesday.
The information will be shared at the annual Community Budget Workshop, which is scheduled from 4:30-6 p.m. Wednesday, May 9. It’s hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM.
The Community Budget Workshop will be in the DOE Conference Room 2714-G at 235 Laboratory Road in Oak Ridge.
“This event serves as one of the most effective forums to educate the community about OREM’s progress, budget, and priorities,” a press release said. “This year’s discussion will focus on the growing financial support Oak Ridge’s environmental cleanup program has received from Congress, and how this support is helping accelerate cleanup and create new opportunities in Oak Ridge.” [Read more…]
An aerial view of the Transuranic Waste Processing Center in west Oak Ridge, where the final drums of legacy transuranic waste stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be processed before shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management)
The final drums of old transuranic waste stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been prepared for disposal.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management reported Tuesday that it had recently completed installing vents and sample ports in the final drums of the legacy transuranic waste stored at ORNL. The decade-long effort ensures that the drums do not contain any hazardous gases that could cause rapid combustion.
The ventilated unit where the drums were vented is closed and explosion-proof, DOE said. It is capable of withstanding a combustion event while keeping workers and ORNL, the nation’s largest multi-program national laboratory, safe, DOE said.
“Venting and sampling these drums is an essential part of the waste disposal process,” ORNL Portfolio Federal Project Director Bill McMillan said. “Now that we can ensure the safety of each drum, they are ready for transport to the Transuranic Waste Processing Center for processing and subsequent shipment to a permanent disposal facility away from Oak Ridge.” [Read more…]
Anne Marie White was sworn in on Thursday in Washington, D.C., as assistant secretary for environmental management at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Environmental management, or EM, is DOE’s cleanup program, and it’s one of the major federal programs in Oak Ridge.
As assistant secretary, White will provide leadership to continue the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy brought about from five decades of nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear energy research, a press release said. She will work closely with communities that have partnered with DOE and its predecessor agencies for many decades, the press release said. [Read more…]
An aerial view of the Biology Complex at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Plans call for eventually demolishing the complex. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)
The federal spending bill approved last week includes $639 million for the federal government’s cleanup program in Oak Ridge, including what could be full funding for a top priority deactivation and demolition project at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
The $639 million for the current fiscal year is an increase of $141 million or more, compared to recent fiscal years, and it’s the most money appropriated in a while.
Besides Y-12, the fiscal year 2018 funding will be used for U.S. Department of Energy cleanup projects at East Tennessee Technology Park (the former K-25 site) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“It’s very positive for us,” said Jay Mullis, manager of the DOE Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM. Mullis gave a brief update at a meeting of the Oak Ridge Reservation Communities Alliance on Monday.
In addition to $125 million to deactivate and demolish the Biology Complex at Y-12, the fiscal year 2018 spending bill includes $17.1 million in funding for the planned Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12, about $200 million for continued cleanup work at ETTP, and a total of roughly $12 million for the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, or EMDF. That’s a proposed landfill that could be west of Y-12 and accept waste from future cleanup work at Y-12 and ORNL, possibly early in the 2020s. The project plan for EMDF is expected to be open to public comment later this summer. [Read more…]
