Oak Ridge Today

Report: Medical isotope company plans to build manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge

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A building at the entrance of Heritage Center is pictured above. (Photo by CROET)

Note: This story was updated at 8:45 a.m. Oct. 10.

A Florida newspaper reported on Wednesday that a medical isotope company will build a manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge, rather than relocating to a city in north Florida.

Coquí RadioPharmaceutical had planned to build a $250 million manufacturing facility in Alachua, which is near Gainesville, with 164 jobs paying an average of $75,000, the Gainesville Sun reported.

But the company announced Wednesday that it will instead build its facility in Oak Ridge, lured by a gift of 170 acres from the U.S. Department of Energy and the opportunity to work with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a DOE lab, the newspaper said.

On Saturday, Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson said he is aware of the company, and it is working with the state of Tennessee. [Read more…]

Brian Henry named portfolio federal project director for Y-12 cleanup

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Brian Henry (DOE photo by Lynn Freeny)

 

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM, has named Brian Henry as its new portfolio federal project director for cleanup at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Henry will replace Laura Wilkerson, who is now director of the Planning and Execution Division, where she oversees the portfolio cleanup directors at Y-12, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and East Tennessee Technology Park. Henry will report to Wilkerson.

As the portfolio federal project director, Henry oversees all of the planning and execution for Y-12’s current and upcoming cleanup projects, including all decontamination, demolition, and disposal operations, a press release said. In this role, he is also leading preparations for the Mercury Treatment Facility and the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, two of OREM’s largest and most vital near-term capital projects. [Read more…]

Cange to move to DC to serve in interim DOE Environmental Management job

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Sue Cange, manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, is pictured above at the end of demolition of the K-27 Building on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 2:30 p.m.

Sue Cange will be moving at least temporarily to Washington, D.C., to become interim principal deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management. She will be temporarily serving in the role formerly filled by Mark Whitney, who has taken a job in the private sector.

Whitney is a former manager of the Environmental Management program in Oak Ridge. He has been appointed chief operating officer of AECOM’s nuclear and environment strategic business unit. He worked for DOE for 11 years and served in both the Environmental Management office and the National Nuclear Security Administration, AECOM said in a press release.

Cange is expected to move in the next few weeks, sometime in October, said Ben Williams, DOE spokesperson for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. [Read more…]

Local environmental board meets with federal, state agencies to discuss cleanup mission

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The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board holds its annual planning meeting in August 2016 with U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. (Submitted photo)

 

In August, members of a citizen’s advisory board met with representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to consider key issues for Oak Ridge Reservation cleanup in fiscal year 2017, which begins in October.

The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board held its 2016 Annual Planning Meeting in Townsend, Tennessee, on August 6. The Saturday meeting brought together members of the Oak Ridge board, leadership from DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM, and liaisons from federal and state regulatory agencies to review cleanup accomplishments in FY 2016 and discuss priorities for FY 2017.

ORSSAB is a federally chartered citizens’ panel that provides recommendations to OREM on its environmental management activities at DOE sites locally. OREM encourages public participation in federal projects and meets regularly with the Oak Ridge board, as well as with other citizen and stakeholder groups within the community to gather public perspectives regarding a diverse cleanup mission that addresses legacy nuclear waste at sites across the Oak Ridge Reservation through numerous activities, including waste disposition, long-term stewardship, and site restoration. [Read more…]

City Council, DOE manager to discuss relations, hiring, housing; water rates also on agenda

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Kenneth R. Tarcza

Kenneth R. Tarcza (Photo courtesy DOE Oak Ridge Office)

 

Some members of the Oak Ridge City Council and some residents have had a few concerns related to the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors, including whether the DOE sites are doing enough to encourage new employees to live in Oak Ridge and whether DOE is paying enough on its payments in lieu of taxes to the City of Oak Ridge.

A more recent concern is whether DOE is paying enough for water supplied by the city to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, which are both federal sites.

On Tuesday, the Oak Ridge City Council could discuss these issues as it meets in a non-voting work session with Kenneth R. Tarcza, manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Operations. The work session, which is open to the public, starts at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Central Services Complex on Woodbury Lane (behind the Kmart shopping center).

Among the DOE-related items on the agenda are a discussion and review of city-DOE relations, local hiring for DOE projects, housing, and “other related issues.” [Read more…]

Council wants to roughly triple proposed water rate at ORNL, Y-12

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The Oak Ridge Water Treatment Plant is pictured on Pine Ridge above the Y-12 National Security Complex. (Photo by City of Oak Ridge)

 

Note: This story was updated at 6:50 p.m.

Some Oak Ridge City Council members have questioned whether the federal government is paying enough for municipal water at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex, and on Monday, four of them proposed roughly tripling a potential new high-volume water rate at the two federal sites in 2017.

The new water rate would apply to water consumption over 20 million gallons per month, which would limit it to ORNL and Y-12. The two sites use a total of more than 100 million gallons of water per month.

The new rate is expected to go into effect in April 2017 only if Oak Ridge and the U.S. Department of Energy aren’t able to agree on a contract for water at ORNL and Y-12 by the end of March. Those two federal sites now pay a flat annual rate but could default to what is known as a retail rate if the contract lapses.

The city staff had proposed a new default rate of $1.08 per thousand gallons for consumption over 20 million gallons starting January 1, 2017. The following year, in 2018, the staff had proposed a $1.35 rate.

But four City Council members—Rick Chinn, Charlie Hensley, Trina Baughn, and Chuck Hope—voted to raise the $1.08 rate in 2017 to $3 per 1,000 gallons. Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch, Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Smith, and Council member Kelly Callison voted against the increase. [Read more…]

Opinion: Alexander discusses ETTP demolition, development; Oak Ridge cleanup work

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Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

By Lamar Alexander

This week marked the end of an era. The last of the five uranium enrichment buildings in Oak Ridge has been cleaned up, making land available for new companies and new jobs coming to East Tennessee.

Tennessee should be extremely proud of the men and women who have worked for more than a decade to complete the demolition and cleanup at the East Tennessee Technology Park.

The story of how these buildings first came to be built is by now a familiar one. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Senator Kenneth McKellar, the Tennessean who chaired the Appropriations Committee, to hide $2 billion for a secret project to win World War II. McKellar replied, “Mr. President, I have just one question: Where in Tennessee do you want me to hide it?”

They hid it in Oak Ridge, on 2,200 acres along the Clinch River, where they quietly built K-25, the largest building in the world, to enrich uranium through gaseous diffusion—a complicated and now mostly obsolete process. [Read more…]

Historic day: Last wall to be demolished at last of big five uranium-enriching buildings at ETTP (K-25)

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K-27 Demolition Aug 17 2016 Freeny

The last wall of the last of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium at the former K-25 site will be demolished Tuesday. A section of the K-27 Building, the last to be demolished, is pictured above on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2016. (DOE photo by Lynn Freeny)

 

The last wall of the last of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium at the former K-25 site will be demolished Tuesday.

Demolition on the last building, the K-27 Building, started in February.

The other four buildings—K-25, K-29, K-31, and K-33—were demolished between 2006 and 2015. All five of the huge buildings once used a process called gaseous diffusion to produce highly enriched uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants, starting during World War II and continuing through the Cold War. The largest was K-25, a mile-long U-shaped building.

When K-27 demolition is complete, it will be the first time that all of a site’s uranium-enriching gaseous diffusion buildings will have been cleaned up anywhere in the world, officials said.

“Demolition eliminates environmental hazards and prepares the land for productive reuse through deindustrialization,” a media advisory said. [Read more…]

Demolition work on K-27, last of big 5 uranium-enrichment buildings, to be complete this month

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Demolition work should be complete this month on K-27, the last of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants at the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge, officials said in July 2016. (DOE photo/Lynn Freeny)

 

Demolition work should be complete this month on K-27, the last of the big five buildings once used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants at the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge, officials said last week.

Demolition work started on K-27 in February.

Like the other four buildings that have already been demolished, the four-story, 383,000-square-foot K-27 building once used a process known as gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium.

The demolition is part of Vision 2016. That’s the plan by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management, or EM, to remove all five gaseous diffusion buildings from the site by the end of the year.

Federal officials said it’s the first time in the world that a uranium enrichment complex has been cleaned and removed. [Read more…]

Council agrees to negotiate on AMSE property for Main Street; DOE wants to dispose of museum

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The American Museum of Science and Energy property is pictured above in central Oak Ridge. The wide road running vertically at center-right through the aerial photo is South Tulane Avenue. The proposed Main Street Oak Ridge would be on the right side of South Tulane Avenue at the former Oak Ridge Mall. The road running horizontally at bottom is South Illinois Avenue. AMSE is the brown-roofed building at top-center.

The American Museum of Science and Energy property is pictured above in central Oak Ridge. The wide road running vertically at center-right through the aerial photo is South Tulane Avenue. The proposed Main Street Oak Ridge would be on the right side of South Tulane Avenue at the former Oak Ridge Mall. The road running horizontally at bottom is South Illinois Avenue. AMSE is the brown-roofed building at top-center.

 

Note: This story was last updated at 2 p.m. June 16.

The Oak Ridge City Council agreed Monday to allow the city manager to negotiate with federal officials and the company redeveloping the former Oak Ridge Mall for the transfer of the American Museum of Science and Energy property—if the federal government wants to get rid of it.

And it appears that the federal government does want to dispose of the museum. The U.S. Department of Energy has asked the federal General Services Administration, which disposes of federal property, for help with that process, said Claire Sinclair of Oak Ridge National Laboratory Site Office Public Affairs. GSA took on that role last week.

But the transfer of federal property such as AMSE usually takes a few years, Sinclair said, and if a new use were proposed for the museum property, adequate public notice would be given. ORNL manages AMSE for DOE.

In the meantime, AMSE is expected to continue operating, officials said.

Under the resolution approved by Council on Monday, the 17.12 acres of federal property at the AMSE site could be transferred to the city. Or RealtyLink, the company redeveloping the mall, could negotiate directly with federal officials. The U.S. Department of Energy owns the museum, and it would work on any proposed transfer through the General Services Administration. [Read more…]

DOE sites provided $1.5 million in funding for AMSE in FY 2015

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AMSE Community Meeting Audience

The auditorium at the American Science and Energy Museum in Oak Ridge was nearly full during a community meeting to discuss AMSE’s future in July 2014. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Three U.S. Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge provided $1.5 million in funding for the American Museum of Science and Energy in Fiscal Year 2015, an official said Monday.

The funding varies each year, and the funding for Fiscal Year 2016, the current fiscal year, hasn’t been determined, said Claire Sinclair, a spokesperson in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Site Office Public Affairs. ORNL manages AMSE for DOE, which owns the museum.

In FY 2015, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex each contributed $630,000 to AMSE, and the East Tennessee Technology Park provided $240,000. That’s a major portion of AMSE funding, the museum says on its website. (AMSE also has memberships, and the museum charges for admission.)

Questions about the future of AMSE have been raised as the Oak Ridge City Council considers a resolution on how the city would like the land transferred, if the DOE and General Services Administration decide to dispose of the property at some point in the future. [Read more…]

DOE: Oak Ridge’s Building K-27 being torn down quickly

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K-27 Demolition

Crews are moving at an impressive pace on Building K-27, completing more than 65 percent of the demolition since February. (Photo by DOE)

 

In February 2016, demolition crews started tearing down the K-27 gaseous diffusion building.

Now, only months later, the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and its contractor UCOR have already completed demolition on more than 65 percent of the four-story, 383,000-square-foot facility, the U.S. Department of Energy said.

K-27 is the last of five large gaseous diffusion facilities to be torn down at the East Tennessee Technology Park, or ETTP, which was formerly known as the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant and often referred to as the former K-25 site.

“Due to the heavy contamination and state of the 1940s facility, K-27 was one of the environmental management’s highest cleanup priorities,” the DOE Office of Environmental Management, or EM, said in a May 31 newsletter. “The progress taking down the facility moves EM closer to fulfilling its Vision 2016—the removal of all five gaseous diffusion buildings from the site by year’s end. It is not only a significant goal for EM and Oak Ridge, but it will also mark the first time in the world that a uranium enrichment complex has been cleaned and removed.” [Read more…]