Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
7/10/2015
The National Nuclear Security Administration recently released a draft environmental assessment for a proposed new 17,000-square-foot emergency operations center (EOC) at Y-12 that would consolidate the Plant Shift Superintendent’s Office, the Emergency Command Center, the Technical Support Center, and the Fire Department Control Room from their present locations to a “survivable facility.” NNSA will accept public comments through July 30. Steven Wyatt, a spokesperson for NNSA’s Production Office at Y-12, declined to provide cost and schedule details before project approval, but budget documents for FY 2015 indicate the project was expected to cost about $22.5 million.
NNSA budget documents show the agency requested $17.9 million for the facility’s construction for Fiscal Year 2016 after $2 million was appropriated for FY 2015. The environmental assessment cautions against the “No Action Alternative,” noting that existing 70-year-old buildings would further age toward obsolescence. “Operations and maintenance costs would likely increase, and system failures would ultimately mean that significant capital investments would be required for this alternative to remain tenable,” the assessment states. “From a mission fulfillment standpoint, the aging facilities would become even more functionally and technologically obsolescent and could see further deceases in efficiency and effectiveness as the buildings become increasingly inadequate.”
