Oak Ridge Today

ETTP cleanup team receives Secretary’s Award

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East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site, is pictured above in west Oak Ridge after most cleanup work, including demolition of the five large gaseous diffusion buildings, was completed. (Submitted photo)

The Oak Ridge team that mostly cleaned up the former K-25 site, demolishing five large gaseous diffusion buildings and more than 500 structures, has received a Secretary’s Achievement Award from U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. The work was done ahead of schedule and under budget, the U.S. Department of Energy said.

Granholm honored the DOE Office of Environmental Management team from Oak Ridge in a virtual ceremony Wednesday, a press release said.

K-25 was used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants from World War II to the 1980s.

It was the first removal of a uranium enrichment complex, and it cleared 13 million square feet of deteriorated, contaminated structures from the site, the press release said.

“The Secretary’s Achievement Award honors a group or team of DOE employees and contractors who accomplish significant achievements on behalf of the department, demonstrating cooperation and teamwork in attaining their goals,” the press release said. “The award was given to the Oak Ridge Vision 2020 Project Team based on its achievements from 2020.”

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K-25 History Center has grand opening this month

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The K-25 History Center will have a grand opening ceremony on Thursday, February 27.

The ceremony, which will include a ribbon-cutting, is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday, February 27, at 652 Enrichment Street in west Oak Ridge.

The K-25 site, now known as Heritage Center, was built during World War II to help enrich uranium for the top-secret Manhattan Project, a federal program to build the world’s first atomic bombs. K-25 helped enrich uranium for “Little Boy,” a nuclear weapon dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

After the war, K-25 enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants through the Cold War. The site was shut down in the mid-1980s, and it is being cleaned up and converted into a private industrial park. The site’s large uranium enrichment buildings have been demolished and so have many of the support buildings. Most of the cleanup is expected to be completed this year.

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DOE needs more time for K-25 history projects

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An outside view showing the K-25 History Center, Equipment Building, and Viewing Tower at East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. (Image courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)

An image published in October 2017 shows the K-25 History Center, Equipment Building, and Viewing Tower at East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. (Image courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)

 

The U.S. Department of Energy is requesting more time to complete projects to commemorate the historic contributions of the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge.

Built during World War II, the K-25 site helped enrich uranium for the first atomic bomb used in wartime as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The plant continued to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear power plants after the war, and those who have worked at the site have said it helped win the Cold War.

The history of the site will be honored by preserving the concrete slab of the former K-25 Building, building a Viewing Tower and replica Equipment Building on the south side of the building site, and opening a K-25 History Center on the second floor of the adjacent Oak Ridge Fire Station Number 4.

A historical interpretation agreement was signed in August 2012. But it expires this August. And the roughly $20 million worth of projects won’t be complete by then.

DOE is making “good progress,” but “the reality is we need a little more time,” said Dave Adler, acting deputy manager for DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. Adler and Steve Cooke, K-25 preservation coordinator for DOE, briefly discussed the proposed amendment to the agreement during a Tuesday evening work session with the Oak Ridge City Council. [Read more…]

K-25 Equipment Building & Viewing Tower: Design complete, construction funding available

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An outside view showing the K-25 History Center, Equipment Building, and Viewing Tower at East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. (Image courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)

An image published in October 2017 shows the K-25 History Center, Equipment Building, and Viewing Tower at East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. It wasn’t immediately clear Friday evening, Jan. 11, 2019, if the design has changed. (Image courtesy U.S. Department of Energy)

 

The design is complete and funding is available for the construction of an Equipment Building and Viewing Tower that will help commemorate the history of the K-25 Building, once the world’s largest building under one roof.

K-25 was built in Oak Ridge during World War II to help enrich uranium for the Manhattan Project. That was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons. During the war, Oak Ridge enriched the uranium for “Little Boy,” the first atomic bomb used in wartime. “Little Boy” was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, shortly before the end of World War II.

After the war, the four-story, 44-acre K-25 Building and four other large buildings at the K-25 site continued to use a process known as gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants. Officials say the K-25 site, which is in west Oak Ridge, helped win the Cold War.

After decades of use, the K-25 site was shut down in the mid-1980s, and as part of a cleanup effort in recent years, the five large gaseous diffusion buildings have been demolished. But the history of the K-25 building and the site will live on in a History Center on the second floor of Oak Ridge Fire Station Number 4, which is next to K-25’s concrete slab, and at the Equipment Building and Viewing Tower, which will be just west of the History Center.

The History Center, Equipment Building, and Viewing Tower will be on the south side of the former K-25 Building. The site is now known as Heritage Center or East Tennessee Technology Park. [Read more…]

Centrus Energy has $15 million project to prepare K-1600 for demolition

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The "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. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)

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…]

Workers demolish contaminated building at ETTP

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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)

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…]

Atomic Heritage Foundation launches new audio, visual program on Oak Ridge

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Bill Wilcox 90th Birthday Party

Oak Ridge City Historian Bill Wilcox, who died in 2013, was a longtime advocate for preserving the city’s history, including parts of its federal facilities. Wilcox is pictured above at his 90th birthday party in the spring of 2013.

 

Submitted

“There was construction going on everywhere you looked,” Bill Wilcox remembered, describing his first impressions of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. “Trucks and people just crawling all over the place, hammers and banging. Wooden structures going up everywhere. Nothing was paved, and there weren’t any sidewalks.”

Wilcox was one of the thousands of people who moved to the new “Secret City” of Oak Ridge to work on the Manhattan Project, the top-secret World War II effort to develop an atomic bomb.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation has launched a new online interpretive program on Oak Ridge with 16 audio/visual vignettes. This beta program is part of AHF’s “Ranger in Your Pocket” series on the Manhattan Project, which focuses on former Manhattan Project sites and features vignettes with eyewitness accounts and expert commentary. AHF welcomes feedback and will improve and expand upon the program over the next year, a press release said.

In September 1942, Manhattan Project director General Leslie Groves designated “Site X,” approximately 59,000 acres of land on the Clinch River in rural eastern Tennessee, as the site for the project’s uranium production facilities. Approximately 3,000 people living in the area in five small farming communities were forced to leave their homes and land with minimal compensation. Construction of a new city began at breakneck speed. By the end of World War II, some 75,000 people would call Oak Ridge home, making it the fifth-largest city in Tennessee. [Read more…]

About 185 acres at Heritage Center transferred to CROET

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The image above showing reindustrialization progress at East Tennessee Technology Park comes from a presentation on Oct. 11, 2017, by Dave Adler by the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. The K-31/K-33 area is the blue area at the top right side of the ETTP site, and Duct Island is the purple/pink area just below it and slightly to the left. The former K-25 Building was in the yellow area at center. The proposed airport is at the bottom right in the blue and purple/pink area along State Route 58.

The image above showing reindustrialization progress at East Tennessee Technology Park comes from a presentation on Oct. 11, 2017, by Dave Adler by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. The K-31/K-33 area is the blue area at the top right side of the ETTP site, and Duct Island is the purple/pink area just below it and slightly to the left. The former K-25 Building was in the yellow area at center. The proposed airport is at the bottom right in the blue and purple/pink area on the north side of State Route 58.

 

About 185 acres in the northwest corner of Heritage Center, the former K-25 site, have been transferred to the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee.

CROET is a nonprofit organization that helps find new uses for former U.S. Department of Energy property.

The 185 acres transferred to CROET at Heritage Center are where the K-31 and K-33 buildings used to be. The property transfer was recorded at the Roane County courthouse on October 10, said Lawrence Young, CROET president.

“We hope to be able to attract, over time, larger industrial clients,” Young said Monday.

The parcels are currently vacant, and they have been cleaned up by the U.S. Department of Energy and UCOR, DOE’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge. There should not be any impediments to using the parcels as industrial property from an environmental standpoint, Young said. [Read more…]

The legacy of Bill Wilcox lives on at K-25 History Center

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Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian and city historian, announces a book published posthumously that was written by Bill Wilcox, a former city historian, former technical director at K-25 and Y-12, and a passionate advocate for historic preservation, including the history of the former K-25 site. Smith announced the book at a ceremony unveiling plans for a K-25 History Center on the second floor of the city-owned fire station at the the former K-25 site, now known as East Tennessee Technology Park on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian and city historian, announces a book published posthumously that was written by Bill Wilcox, a former city historian, former technical director at K-25 and Y-12, and a passionate advocate for historic preservation, including of the former K-25 site. Smith announced the book at a ceremony unveiling plans for a K-25 History Center on the second floor of the city-owned fire station at K-25, now known as East Tennessee Technology Park, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

He was a passionate advocate for preserving Oak Ridge’s history.

He was known for his bow ties and captivating storytelling. He once led the effort to save the former K-25 Building in west Oak Ridge, or at least part of it.

Now the legacy of Bill Wilcox will live on at the K-25 History Center.

Construction on the history center could start early next year on the second floor of Oak Ridge Fire Station Number Four. That fire station, previously transferred to the city, is on the south side of the former K-25 Building at East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge.

Officials preparing for the construction of the history center gave tours of its future home at the fire station on Thursday. The tours followed a lunchtime celebration that featured tributes to Wilcox and included speeches and presentations by U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge officials, and federal contractors and historic preservation advocates. Wilcox was hailed as the “father of K-25 historic preservation.”

“He would have been really proud,” said Ray Smith, Wilcox’s friend and Y-12 National Security Complex historian and city historian. “His legacy lives on.” [Read more…]

Senate bill recommends $8 million for K-25 historic preservation work

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K-25 Historic Preservation Footprint at ETTP

An image showing the footprint of the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building at the former K-25 site in west Oak Ridge, now known as East Tennessee Technology Park or Heritage Center. Built during World War II to enrich uranium, the K-25 Building has been demolished but its “footprint” has been preserved. This image shows the footprint at center, the K-25 History Center on the second floor of the city-owned fire station, front right, and the Equipment Building and Viewing Tower at front left. (Graphic by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

A bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday recommends $8 million for K-25 historic preservation work.

If approved, the funding would help preserve the historic contributions that the K-25 Site made to the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic bombs during World War II.

The historic preservation work is required under a 2012 agreement that allowed the complete demolition of the K-25 Building, which was once the world’s largest building under one roof.

The 2012 agreement allowed workers to demolish the North Tower at the mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building in west Oak Ridge. Historic preservationists had lobbied for years to save the North Tower.

In exchange for the complete demolition of K-25, the agreement, announced in August 2012, called for a replica equipment building, a viewing tower, and a history center at a city-owned fire station. It also included an online virtual museum and a $500,000 grant to buy and stabilize the historic Alexander Inn in central Oak Ridge, which has since been converted into an assisted living center. [Read more…]

Construction could start this year on K-25 History Center

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K-25 History Center and Equipment Building

An image showing the K-25 History Center on the second floor of the city-owned fire station, right, at East Tennessee Technology Park, with the Equipment Building and Viewing Tower at left. (Graphic by David Brown/U.S. Department of Energy)

 

Construction could start this year on the K-25 History Center at the East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge, federal officials said. Plans also call for an Equipment Building and Viewing Tower at the site. Although the projects depend upon funding, the goal is to finish the work by 2019.

The K-25 site was one of three large sites built by the federal government in Oak Ridge during World War II to help make the world’s first atomic weapons as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The other two sites were X-10, which is now known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Y-12, now the Y-12 National Security Complex.

At K-25, the three history-related facilities will have three missions. The History Center will tell the story of the workers. The Equipment Building will focus on the technology. And the Viewing Tower will show visitors the size of the site. All three facilities will be on the south side of the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building.

K-25 used a process called gaseous diffusion to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and, later, for commercial nuclear power plants. Officials and contractors have said that K-25 helped win the Cold War. The site is now known as Heritage Center or East Tennessee Technology Park.

Preserving its history is part of a Memorandum of Agreement that was signed in August 2012 and allowed for the complete demolition of K-25, once the world’s largest building under one roof. The historic preservation work is expected to cost about $20 million total. [Read more…]

General Assembly approves bill that would establish CROET as ETTP manager

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The East Tennessee Technology Park, now known as Heritage Center in west Oak Ridge, is pictured above in this aerial photo from 2015. The large building that extends from left to right at left-center is the former K-27 Building, where demolition work was completed in August 2016. (Photo courtesy CROET)

The East Tennessee Technology Park, now known as Heritage Center in west Oak Ridge, is pictured above in this aerial photo from 2015. The large building that extends from left to right at left-center is the former K-27 Building, where demolition work was completed in August 2016. (Photo courtesy CROET)

 

The Tennessee General Assembly has approved legislation that would establish the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, or CROET, as the manager of the 1,300-acre East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge, a press release said.

The legislation was sponsored by Tennessee Senator Ken Yager and Representative Kent Calfee, both Kingston Republicans. It has been sent to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam for his signature.

East Tennessee Technology Park, or ETTP, is also known as Heritage Center and the former K-25 site. It once housed the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. That was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons, before Germany could.

The ETTP site, once used to enrich uranium, is slowly being cleaned up. K-25 operations ended in 1985, and the site was permanently shut down in 1987. Now, it is being slowly converted into a large industrial park. Proponents hope it will become one of East Tennessee’s prime locations for new industry, the press release said.

CROET President Lawrence Young said the state legislation “is the latest step in efforts by the Department of Energy and CROET to reindustrialize the former K-25 site and help diversify the region’s economy.” [Read more…]