Deactivation & Decommissioning News

More than 100 people attended a May 17 public meeting on the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management’s (OREM) proposed onsite disposal facility.

EM leaders recently got a firsthand look at cleanup progress being made at the Paducah Site in western Kentucky.

EM partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) to complete the recent demolition of a building and removal of a reactor to make room for new facilities on the lab’s 1-square-mile footprint.

With supply chain issues creating difficulties in obtaining critical infrastructure components, the transfer of various pieces of electrical equipment from EM to the City of Oak Ridge comes at an opportune time.

EM has requested a fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget of $7.64 billion, an amount that will enable the program to continue making strong, steady and sustained progress on priorities to clean up legacy nuclear sites now and in the years ahead.

EM sites through key investments proposed in EM’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget request, reflecting the Administration’s strong commitment to cleaning up the environment in a new era of steady, sustained achievement.

The $7.64 billion budget request includes about $25 million for EM’s Technology Development (TD) Program.

EM has prepared the East Column Exchange (COLEX) equipment at Oak Ridge for demolition following deactivation work that involved retrieving mercury from the deteriorating structures to prevent a potential environmental release.

Workers at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) recently removed a large ventilation duct from the Main Plant Process Building, another step in reducing risk and preparing the facility for demolition, an EM 2022 priority.

A recent upgrade at H Canyon at the Savannah River Site (SRS) will now make it possible to process plutonium fuel removed from a Japanese research reactor, aiding the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nonproliferation mission.