Oak Ridge Today

Crews prepare to demolish Graphite Reactor support facilities

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An aerial view of a filter house, fan house, and 200-foot-tall exhaust stack that provided support to the Graphite Reactor, which is located about 100 feet away from these facilities. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management)

Federal cleanup crews are preparing to demolish three support facilities for the historic Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The demolition of the support facilities is planned for next year.

The deactivation work at the three facilities is being done by UCOR, a cleanup contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

The buildings include the filter house, or Building 3002; fan house, or Building 3003; and exhaust stack, or Building 3018. They were previously used to filter and release exhaust from Graphite Reactor operations.

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Workers devise strategies to clean up high-risk contaminated lab at ORNL

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Workers lower detection equipment through an opening in the roof of the East Cell Bank at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to capture readings inside the facility. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management/UCOR)

Innovation has been required as federal cleanup crews work to deactivate and demolish the final portion of the former Radioisotope Development Laboratory at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The structure is known as the East Cell Bank, and it is on the U.S. Department of Energy’s list of high-risk excess contaminated facilities, said a press release from DOE Office of Environmental Management. The East Cell Bank is located in the heart of ORNL, near ongoing research missions.

Workers with cleanup contractor UCOR characterized the final cell to identify potential radiological and hazardous contamination, the press release said. They conducted the work in stages under a six-story protective structure erected to ensure nearby facilities and ongoing research missions at ORNL aren’t impacted by the cleanup.

The crews began by taking surveys and readings from an opening at the front of the structure, the release said. They used long-reach tools and a specialized radiation detector. The detector overlays a radiation-intensity color map on a picture of the environment and identifies gamma-ray emitting nuclides and their locations.

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Mullis, who led Oak Ridge cleanup, now working at DOE HQ

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Jay Mullis

Jay Mullis, who has led Oak Ridge’s federal cleanup program for more than five years, is now working in U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Mullis became the acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs on November 1. He will serve in that position until it is filled. He replaces Mark Gilbertson, who retired from federal service at the end of October.

With Mullis going to Washington, D.C., Laura Wilkerson has been named acting manager for the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM).

As manager of cleanup work in Oak Ridge, Mullis has been responsible for an annual budget of more than $650 million that supports environmental cleanup and stewardship, decontamination and decommissioning, waste processing and management, surveillance and maintenance programs, historic preservation, and procurement and contract functions, according to DOE.

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