OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - Workers recently demolished a sanitary sewage treatment facility, moving the DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) closer to completing major cleanup at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) by 2020.
K-1203 is the latest structure in the Poplar Creek area of ETTP to be demolished. In past months, OREM and its cleanup contractor, URS | CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), tore down the 5,000-square-foot K-832-H Cooling Tower and the 11,000-square-foot K-832 Cooling Water Pumphouse.
Prior to those knockdowns, the Poplar Creek area contained 11 large buildings and numerous structures built in the 1940s and 1950s to support the site’s former nuclear program and operations. Its remaining structures are the most contaminated facilities left at ETTP, following the demolition of five massive gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment buildings.
“The demolition of K-1203 brings us another step closer to realizing our ultimate vision at ETTP," said OREM Manager Jay Mullis. “We are steadily removing facilities, cleaning land, and enhancing the appearance of ETTP, which is helping transform and transition the site into an asset that can benefit the community and region in the years to come."
OREM and its contractors have been cleaning up ETTP, the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, for years while working with the reindustrialization program to transfer cleaned areas and facilities to the private sector.
To date, OREM has taken down more than 400 facilities at ETTP spanning 10 million square feet and transferred more than 1,000 acres and 14 facilities to the community for reuse and economic development.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
