Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex are home to more than 300 excess, contaminated facilities, including DOE's largest inventory of high-risk structures. OREM is responsible for stabilizing and preparing these facilities for demolition. This complex and challenging process is eliminating hazards and laying the groundwork for major transformation at those sites. 

OREM is tasked with tearing down hundreds of facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex over the next two decades. Those projects are removing contaminated reactor facilities, labs, and enrichment facilities and opening space DOE and NNSA can reuse to advance research and national security missions. 

Once old, contaminated buildings are cleared away, the final phase of cleanup involves addressing the soil and groundwater beneath them. OREM performs this work to enhance safety, minimize impacts to the environment, and enable land to be reused in the future.

Cleanup on the Oak Ridge Reservation generates considerable amounts of waste in many different forms. Highly radioactive and hazardous waste is shipped out of state for permanent disposal, while low-level waste, such as building debris and soil, is disposed of in an engineered facility located on site.

OREM is part of a tri-party agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation that establishes guidelines and milestones for cleanup. The collaboration between these organizations has positioned Oak Ridge as the national pacesetter for cleanup within the federal government.