K-25 Museum Won’t Include Original Equipment
WC Monitor
2/20/2015
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Environmental Management office has confirmed that the upcoming displays planned as part of a K-25 historical park and museum will not include any of the original uranium-processing equipment as part of the exhibit. According to Mike Koentop, the executive officer of the Office of Environmental Management, the issue has nothing to do with the classification guidelines for the gaseous diffusion technology, but rather a problem with radioactive contamination. The converters and compressors on display will be replicas, Koentop said. “That determination was made after a thorough study determined that the equipment could not be appropriately cleaned to free-release standards,” he said. “We have discussed this with the Consulting Parties [to the Memorandum of Agreement, which set terms for the project], and they understand the need.”
Ray Smith, a historian at Y-12 and a member of the Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association, said most of the preservationists understand the concern. “I think we’ve resolved ourselves to the fact. … They don’t think they can ever get it cleaned up enough to provide public access.” The equipment on display will be the same size and look just like the actual equipment, Smith said. “It just won’t be the real thing,” he said. While the original enrichment equipment won’t be displayed, DOE contractors have salvaged and stored more than 700 artifacts from K-25 that will be on display – including some of the bicycles (or tricycles) that were used by workers to traverse different point along the mile-long, U-shaped structure that was the world’s largest building under one roof at the time of its construction in the 1940s.
