Landmark skyline changes would continue across 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 FY 2023 request prioritizes risk reduction by enabling EM to continue taking down contaminated buildings at sites such as Portsmouth in Ohio while building new facilities as part of significant infrastructure and modernization campaigns at sites such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. EM is also committed to continued improvements in contract and project management, as demonstrated in key projects like the completion of major cleanup at the East Tennessee Technology Park at Oak Ridge in 2020.

“EM’s ambitious fiscal year 2023 budget request reflects this Administration’s steadfast support for critical deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) projects and other work central to EM’s vital mission,” said Jay Mullis, EM acting associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs. “This budget request would enable EM to continue sustained progress in skyline changes as we clean up the environmental legacy of the past and help impacted communities look forward to the future.”

Facility D&D makes up 20% of EM’s FY 2023 budget request, supporting projects at sites such as Savannah River Site (SRS), Hanford, Oak Ridge, Portsmouth, Paducah, Los Alamos, the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) and others.

The FY 2023 budget request supports:

• Demolition of X-326, the first of three massive former gaseous diffusion plants that will be taken down at the Portsmouth Site. Crews have already completed 65% of the X-326 teardown. EM will then pivot to pre-demolition activities in the X-333 building, with the goal of completing demolition of two of the site’s process buildings over the next decade. As cleanup progresses toward its end state at Portsmouth, EM will continue to transfer land for economic development, achieving the goal of returning the site to a condition where it can be used to help the community grow and thrive.
• Continued cleanup of excess facilities at Oak Ridge, including the Radiological Development Lab, Bulk Shielding Reactor, and Low-Intensity Test Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the dilapidated East Column Exchange (COLEX) equipment at the Alpha-4 facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
• Initiation of D&D of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Ion Beam Facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory site in New Mexico.
• Advancing demolition at the Engine Maintenance, Assembly, and Disassembly and Test Cell C complexes at the Nevada National Security Site.
• Demolition of the Main Plant Process Building at the WVDP in New York. The five-story, 35,000-square-foot Main Plant was constructed in the 1960s as a commercial reprocessing facility to recover reusable plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear reactor fuel. It operated from 1966 to 1972. The project marks the site's most complex demolition since crews knocked down the Vitrification Facility in 2018.
• Teardown of excess facilities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
• A significant infrastructure and modernization campaign at WIPP so it can increase waste shipments to support cleanup progress and to continue to perform its key role for years to come. This effort includes updating or replacing general plant infrastructure and continuing construction on the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System and new Utility Shaft.