The newly signed $1.3 trillion government omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2018 provides a boost for environmental remediation of the Department of Energy’s nuclear facilities at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
About $639 million will go toward cleaning up Oak Ridge’s Manhattan Project and Cold War sites—$141 million over 2017’s enacted levels and $125 more than the DOE budget request.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the funding will accelerate progress at all three major Oak Ridge cleanup locations: the Y-12 National Security Complex; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; and the East Tennessee Technology Park, previously the site of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
The bill provides just over $17 million for Y-12’s planned Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility. The Energy Department earlier this month issued a request for proposals for contractors to build the plant, which will treat contaminated water at the site. Once up and running, it will also prevent further mercury contamination from escaping when demolition activities begin on contaminated excess facilities at Y-12.
Under the “excess facilities” budget line item for DOE, $125 million will pay for decontaminating and decommissioning Y-12’s biology complex, of which about six buildings remain.
Another $194 million will be directed toward the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which is quickly moving toward its 2020 cleanup completion goal.
Uranium-233 cleanup at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory will receive $50 million, while $10 million will be directed toward a new CERCLA waste disposal.
