Environmental Management Waste Management Facility Archives

CNS still responsible for security, security police officers at Y-12

Posted at 10:21 am November 21, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

A new security contractor will take over at federal sites in Oak Ridge at the end of December, but the contract does not include Oak Ridge National Laboratory or Y-12 National Security Complex. So Oak Ridge Today has requested information about who will provide security at those two sites.

On Tuesday, Y-12 sent a statement that it continues to be responsible for security and the security police officers who protect the plant. That has been true since since Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC began managing and operating the plant in July 2014, Y-12 said.

ORNL said it is working on a response. Oak Ridge Today will update this story, or publish a new one, when that information becomes available. [Read more…]

(For members) New DOE security contractor will take over in December

Posted at 2:27 pm November 19, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

After a protest was denied this month, a new security contractor will take over protecting U.S. Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge at the end of December.

The contract could be worth close to $66 million and be in place for five years.

The rest of this story, which you will find only on Oak Ridge Today, is available if you are a member: a subscriber, advertiser, or recent contributor to Oak Ridge Today.

Already a member? Great! Thank you! Sign in here.

Not a member? No problem! Subscribe here:

Basic

Pro

Temporary

Temporary access ($3 per week for two weeks)

If you prefer to send a check, you may do so by mailing one to:

Oak Ridge Today
P.O. Box 6064
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Note: Most news stories on Oak Ridge Today are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our advertisers, sponsors, and subscribers. Some are considered premium content. This story is premium content. Premium content can include in-depth, investigative, and exclusive stories.

SSAB to hear about DOE work to ensure sufficient waste disposal capacity

Posted at 12:40 am November 14, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board on Wednesday will hear about work by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management to ensure there is sufficient waste disposal capacity to complete future cleanup work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex.

DOE is considering a new landfill known as the Environmental Management Disposal Facility. It could be built in central Bear Creek Valley west of Y-12. There was a public meeting to discuss the project at the New Hope Center at Y-12 on Wednesday, November 7.

The existing landfill, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility west of Y-12, is about three-quarters full, and it is expected to fill up in the early 2020s after cleanup work is complete at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site. [Read more…]

Tonight: Public meeting on DOE landfill

Posted at 11:52 am November 7, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

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…]

Public availability session on proposed DOE landfill is Thursday

Posted at 2:18 pm October 8, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

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…]

Knoxville man charged with attempted murder in Oak Ridge

Posted at 1:03 pm September 9, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Daniel Ray Price

Note: This story was updated at 11:45 a.m. Nov. 1.

A Knoxville man was charged with attempted first-degree murder in August after he allegedly traveled to Oak Ridge armed with two pistols, magazines, and ammunition, intending to kill an Oak Ridge man, according to court records.

Daniel R. Price, 35, who is listed as a transient in Knoxville, is also charged with aggravated assault, two counts of possessing a firearm during a dangerous felony, possessing drugs for sale, simple possession of drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In court records, Oak Ridge Police Department Officer John Thomas said authorities responded on August 9 to a threat that someone could be harmed. Specifically, two people who live in Knoxville reported that Price was driving a maroon Mitsubishi sedan with an FOP sticker on the plate into Oak Ridge and traveling to one of two addresses to find a man named Maxim Fridman.

“Defendant (Price) was reported to be armed with handguns and intending to shoot Fridman,” Thomas said in affidavits filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge.

ORPD officers found Price in the vehicle that had been described to them by the two Knoxville residents, traveling in the general direction of one of the addresses, the affidavits said. [Read more…]

DOE disposing of uranium-233 waste stored at ORNL

Posted at 7:55 pm August 27, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

During training, workers removed a type of shipping cask that was expected to be used to transport 403 canisters of uranium-tainted waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Nevada National Security Site northwest of Las Vegas. (File photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Environmental Management)

This story was updated at 5 p.m. Aug. 30.

They haven’t agreed on a final budget number, but the Trump administration and the U.S. House and Senate have proposed spending between about $33 million and $52 million in the next fiscal year to continue disposing of uranium-233 waste materials that are stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a building that is the oldest continuously operating nuclear facility in the U.S. Department of Energy complex.

The uranium-233, or U-233, waste is now stored in secure vaults in Building 3019, which was built in the 1940s at ORNL. Removing the waste could allow ORNL to relax its overall security posture, which will reduce costs, eliminate nuclear safety issues, and make the campus more conducive to collaborative science, according to a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee report published in July.

Some of the waste is from a 1960s research and development test in New York, and it is being shipped to the Nevada National Security Site, a former nuclear weapons proving ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In interviews this summer, DOE officials in Oak Ridge declined to discuss the amount of that waste that has been shipped to Nevada or to say how long the shipments might continue. But they are making progress, said Jay Mullis, acting manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

Once all of those materials are shipped, the remaining U-233 at ORNL will be treated in “hot cell” facilities across the street from Building 3019, at Building 2026. The DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management owns both buildings.

Mullis said there is other U-233 waste stored in Building 3019, including from glovebox research at ORNL, from reactor plates, and from conglomerate materials. [Read more…]

Responding to disturbance near DOE landfill, police allegedly find drugs, stolen gun in vehicle

Posted at 10:08 am May 22, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Daniel Ray Price

Note This story was updated at 11:50 a.m. Nov. 1.

Oak Ridge police allegedly found marijuana, Xanax, drug paraphernalia, and a stolen pistol in a vehicle after responding to a report of a disturbance near the U.S. Department of Energy landfill on Bear Creek Road near the Y-12 National Security Complex on Sunday, May 14, court records said.

Oak Ridge Police Department K-9 Officer Christopher Wallace said a search of the vehicle with the help of a drug-detecting canine officer found 18.4 ounces of marijuana, along with 97 Xanax (alprazolam) tablets; drug paraphernalia that included rolling papers, a grinder, digital scales, glass marijuana pipe, glass meth/crack cocaine pipe, and a snort straw; an SCCY Industries 9mm CPX2 semi automatic pistol; and a North American Arms (N.A.A.) .22LR mini revolver pistol that the Sevier County Sheriff’s Office had reported as stolen.

Charged after the search was Daniel Ray Price, 35, of Coster Lane in Knoxville. Price said all the items belonged to him, Wallace said in affidavits filed in Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Preparing for demolition, DOE identifies contaminants at Y-12’s Biology Complex

Posted at 12:39 pm April 28, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

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)

Biology Complex at Y-12 once housed more individuals with doctorates than anywhere else in the world

The U.S. Department of Energy and its cleanup contractor finished characterizing the Biology Complex at the Y-12 National Security Complex this month, identifying contaminants before demolishing and disposing of the buildings.

The characterization work was done by DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and its contractor, URS | CH2M, or UCOR.

DOE said it was crucial to get crews into the complex before the working environment became too hazardous.

“Already, team members could not enter a building due to a failed roof,” the Department of Energy said in a story published online on Thursday. “Elsewhere, exterior tiles have fallen from the façade, and asbestos and other material present risks to workers due to roof leaks.”

Jay Mullis, acting manager for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said the completion of the characterization work sets up the cleanup program to demolish Y-12’s Biology Complex when funds become available. [Read more…]

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

Posted at 1:07 am August 4, 2016
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

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 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…]

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

Posted at 1:46 am June 7, 2016
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

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…]

Demolition starts on last of big five uranium-enriching buildings at K-25

Posted at 7:14 pm February 9, 2016
By John Huotari 1 Comment

A high-reach machine is used to start demolishing the four-story, 10-acre K-27 Building on Monday, Feb. 8, 2016. K-27 is the last of the big five uranium-enriching buildings at the former K-25 site, now known as East Tennessee Technology Park or Heritage Center. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Demolition started Monday on K-27, the last of the big five uranium-enriching buildings at the former K-25 site, and officials expect the work to be complete by the end of the year.

The five buildings—K-25, K-27, K-29, K-31, and K-33—once used a process called gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants. Officials credit them for helping to win World War II and end the Cold War, and for playing significant roles in technological developments and the nuclear industry.

The K-25 site, which is now known as East Tennessee Technology Park or Heritage Center, was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first nuclear weapons. The site is now slowly being converted into a large industrial park.

“The majority of the property will be reused,” said Ken Rueter, president and project manager for UCOR, or URS |CH2M Oak Ridge LLC, the U.S. Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]