Oak Ridge Playbook: Maximize Tax Dollars in Fiscal Year 2025, Advance Cleanup

Oak Ridge crews are approaching the halfway mark demolishing Alpha-2 at the Y-12 National Security Complex. They have taken down 143,000 square feet of the 325,000-square-foot building. This marks the largest demolition yet at Y-12 — removal of a former uranium enrichment facility to open space for new infrastructure.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) made strides moving environmental cleanup and reindustrialization forward across Oak Ridge with the help of contractors United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) and Isotek in the fiscal year that recently ended.

Employees maximized tax dollars by pushing forward wide-ranging projects, including building deactivation, demolition, waste processing and disposal, and reindustrialization. OREM’s progress is removing hazards, reducing inventories of nuclear material, and opening land for national security and research missions, and new economic growth.

Crews are approaching the halfway mark on the Alpha-2 demolition project. Taking down the 2.5-acre former uranium enrichment facility is the largest teardown yet at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and its removal provides much needed space for new infrastructure to support national security missions.

Workers are also busy preparing for other Y-12 demolition projects. They are in the final stages of deactivating Beta-1 and the early stages of cleanup in the massive Alpha-4 building. Both are Manhattan Project-era uranium enrichment facilities.

In fiscal year 2025, crews began demolition on a portion of the final hot cell from the former Radioisotope Development Laboratory, which is one of the most contaminated structures at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It was one of two demolitions happening simultaneously at ORNL for the first time.

Demolition crews have also been busy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where UCOR conducted multiple teardowns simultaneously for the first time there.

Crews took down Building 3003, a support structure for the Oak Ridge Graphite Reactor dating back to 1943, along with a portion of the final hot cell from the former Radioisotope Development Laboratory, which is one of the most contaminated structures at ORNL.

It was a bustling scene as workers deactivated the former Isotope Development Lab, known as Building 3038, and a collection of 11 highly contaminated former radioisotope processing facilities referred to as Isotope Row. Their efforts lay the groundwork for a major transformation in the heart of ORNL. Demolition of those facilities is scheduled to begin next year.

Isotek processed 77 canisters of uranium-233 in fiscal year 2025, exceeding the goal of 50. Workers are seen loading the processed and downblended material for shipment and disposal.

Old buildings weren’t the only things disappearing in fiscal year 2025. OREM also steadily eliminated inventories of nuclear material and radiological waste from storage.

Isotek advanced the highest priority cleanup project at ORNL by processing and disposing of 77 canisters of uranium-233, surging past the goal of 50 canisters. That processing campaign is now approximately 40% complete.

Additionally, UCOR helped OREM meet its goal to complete eight shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal. Their fiscal year 2025 shipments removed 232 drums.

To date, crews have processed 98% of the lower-contaminated contact-handled transuranic waste at Oak Ridge and shipped 94% of it for disposal. They have also processed approximately 98% of the higher-contaminated remote-handled waste and shipped 80% of it. Click here for an explanation of contact- and remote-handled transuranic waste.

Workers treat waste at the Transuranic Waste Processing Center in Oak Ridge. To date, crews have processed 98% of the legacy transuranic debris waste in an ongoing effort to eliminate this waste from the site.

UCOR also helped achieved a breakthrough to eliminate a complex waste stored at ORNL for the past 50 years. The contractor completed two shipments of large aluminum and steel containers filled with highly reactive metals — called sodium shields. Through a successful technology demonstration, this material was converted into a stable glass for disposal.

OREM and UCOR have also been busy transitioning the East Tennessee Technology Park from a former cleanup site into a thriving industrial center benefiting the community. OREM transferred 50 acres for economic development in fiscal year 2025, bringing the total to 1,832 acres. Employees also made progress toward transferring other parcels that will make hundreds of additional acres of land available for reuse in the year ahead.

The transferred land is now home to more than 25 businesses. Together, they are making a projected capital investment of $8 billion and expect to generate 2,500 private sector jobs.

-Contributor: Ryan Getsi