Crews have completed deactivation inside the 42,000-square-foot K-1600 facility. Teardown is scheduled to begin this summer.
Crews have completed deactivation inside the 42,000-square-foot K-1600 facility. Teardown is scheduled to begin this summer.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Workers have completed deactivating Building K-1600, a former test and demonstration facility for uranium enrichment centrifuges at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), and now it is ready for demolition.

“This is an incredibly significant project for us and our contractor UCOR because it paves the way for the final demolition at ETTP and positions us to accomplish our ambitious Vision 2020 goal,” said Jay Mullis, manager of the Oak Ridge Office of EM.

Among EM’s 2020 priorities, Vision 2020 is the cleanup program’s goal to complete all demolitions and major cleanup at ETTP by the end of 2020. It will mark the first time in the world an enrichment complex is cleaned and removed.

The 42,000-square-foot K-1600 facility was transferred to Oak Ridge cleanup contractor UCOR in September 2019 to complete deactivation and demolition. Centrus Energy Corp. had leased Building K-1600 since 2002 and finished decommissioning activities prior to the transfer. The company no longer needed the lease after consolidating its centrifuge testing and demonstration activities into a location in Oak Ridge.

Building K-1600 is a recognizable facility at ETTP due to its height and location. It sits in the center of the footprint for the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building. K-25 was one of the site’s five massive gaseous diffusion buildings that once held the title of the world’s largest building.

Deactivation of K-1600 included rendering the building “cold and dark,” which means disconnecting utilities to the structure and installing temporary utilities, such as electrical power. It also included asbestos abatement and waste removal.

Demolition is scheduled to begin this summer.

To date, Oak Ridge’s EM program has taken down facilities spanning nearly 13 million square feet, transferred more than 1,200 acres of land for economic development, and placed more than 3,000 acres in a conservation easement for community recreational use.

Additionally, more than 100 acres will be used for historic preservation efforts at ETTP. Since the K-25 footprint is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, the demolition of Building K-1600 will increase accessibility and remove risks in the area for future use.