Dismantling of X-333 Process Building starts at Portsmouth

Work crews at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio have started removing asbestos-laden outer panels from the mammoth X-333 Process Building at the old uranium enrichment complex.

Workers are removing 16,000 transite panels from the X-333 Process Building over the next year and a half, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a Tuesday statement. The transite panels each weigh between 90 and 140 pounds and contain asbestos.

The 33-acre X-333 facility is the second of three sprawling process buildings to come down at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant complex. Workers for Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth finished taking down the X-326 Building in 2022. Tearing down X-333 is expected to be finished in 2030, DOE said in the release. That will leave only the X-330 Process Building.

X-333 is equal in size to about 24 football fields, DOE has said.

“Transite removal is the first step toward the demolition process,” Federal Project Director Christy Brown said in the statement. “The workers will work in teams using personnel lifts. They will remove, lower, and stack each panel, one at a time, so it is a big job.”