Demolition began Monday on the last of five gaseous diffusion plants at the former Department of Energy uranium enrichment site that is now the East Tennessee Technology Park.
“We’re excited with the milestone of starting demolition today,” Sue Cange, manager of the DOE Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said in a video posted to YouTube by site cleanup manger URS CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR).
Demolition is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2016, according to UCOR President and Project Manager Ken Rueter. That will pave the way for further remediation at ETTP, he said.
The video showed a crane beginning to tear down components of the building’s exterior to applause from a gathered audience.
Built in the 1940s, K-27 was a companion plant to K-25, the site’s first, and largest, gaseous diffusion plant. The building has a 383,000-square-foot footprint and a total floor area of roughly 1.1 million square feet.
Cleanup of K-27 in total has been estimated to cost about $292 million as part of the total $1.1 billion ETTP remediation, which is scheduled for completion in the early 2020s. The area would then be transferred to the public sector for industrial use.
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