In a sign it still plans to install power lines on a hilltop the local government would rather stay bare, the National Nuclear Security Administration has asked the City of Oak Ridge to pick, by Dec. 13, the color the agency should use to camouflage the line poles.
That is according to a late-Friday press release from the City of Oak Ridge, which objects to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to run new lines along a hilltop called Pine Ridge to power the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) Bechtel National is building at Y-12.
NNSA has been planning to run the new lines on Pine Ridge for more than two years, as a publicly available document shows. The City of Oak Ridge said it only “recently” learned about the details of the plan. NNSA has explored alternatives to lines on Pine Ridge, but found none, an agency spokesperson said Friday. To accommodate the city’s desire to hide the new power lines, NNSA has said it can paint the line poles.
The agency had planned to start clearing the hilltop, which separates the city of Oak Ridge from Y-12, in November. The work was expected to take about seven months. However, NNSA put the plan on hold after the city asked for a delay late last month. On Friday, the city said it would seek another month-long delay.
NNSA plans to clear a tract about 100 feet wide and 2 miles long across the wooded Pine Ridge hilltop. The agency has pledged to complete UPF by 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion. The facility will help maintain U.S. nuclear warheads.
