Oak Ridge Uranium Facilities to Be Destroyed

Contractors have received U.S. Energy Department authorization to accelerate the dismantlement of former uranium enrichment operations at the Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 19).

Workers from Bechtel Jacobs Co. have been doing preliminary work on the K-25 and K-27 enrichment facilities. Now they can begin removing uranium deposits, injecting stabilization foam into pipes, dismantling radioactive equipment, and destroying the structures.

Equipment is expected to be sent to an on-site nuclear landfill. Most of the K-25 site will be destroyed, although the northern section will be preserved, AP reported.

Work must be completed by the end of 2008, according to AP.

“What we are free to do now is removal of any process equipment and to focus on the high-risk work,” Steve McCracken, head of DOE cleanup at Oak Ridge, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

K-25 was used to separate uranium isotopes and concentrate U-235 for weapons. No work has been done at that site since the mid-1960s, AP reported (Associated Press, Dec. 20). 

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