Demolition of the fifth and final gaseous diffusion plant at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge site in Tennessee is scheduled to wrap up on Aug. 30, contractor CH2M wrote Monday on its Twitter feed.
Demolition activities began in February. “The final wall of K-27 will fall on August 30, 2016, completing demolition of all five uranium-enrichment gaseous diffusion buildings at the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge, Tenn,” Ashley Hartman, spokesperson for Oak Ridge Reservation cleanup contractor UCOR, said by email Wednesday. “When we achieve this on August 30, it will be the first time in world history that all of a site’s uranium-enrichment gaseous diffusion buildings have been successfully demolished.”
K-27 and four other uranium enrichment plants built were built at Oak Ridge to support the World War II-era Manhattan Project. The plant operated until 1964.
CH2M and AECOM are the major partners in UCOR, DOE’s Oak Ridge deactivation and demolition prime. The company’s nine-year, $2.4 billion cleanup contract runs through July 31, 2020. That includes a four-year option that kicked in on Aug. 1.
