Construction of the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee will ceremonially begin Monday with assistance from two U.S. lawmakers.
Scheduled to attend the 10 a.m. Nov. 20 groundbreaking ceremony are Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.).
The Energy Department believes roughly 700,000 pounds of mercury infiltrated structures, soils, sediments, and the air as over 20 million pounds of the toxic substance were employed from the 1950s to 1960s at Y-12 in processing lithium for nuclear weapons. The treatment facility is intended to curb releases of mercury into the Upper East Fork Poplar Creek, which passes through Y-12 and into the city of Oak Ridge, and to aid in remediation of the nuclear facility itself.
The Energy Department’s lead cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Reservation, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR), in September awarded a $1.4 million subcontract for site preparation for the mercury facility. GEM Technologies is scheduled to complete its work next fall, after which construction should begin.
The mercury facility is scheduled to be operational by 2024, when UCOR’s contract for cleanup at Oak Ridge ends.
According to the Department of Energy, the facility is expected to reduce mercury concentrations in the water by as much as 84 percent. The facility’s design also enables it to be modified as needed with the addition of stormwater storage or other unit operations to further decrease mercury.
Currently, when the temperature rises in the summer, residual mercury in the soil turns into vapor, a significant health risk. Mercury in ground and storm water exits the site through the storm drains, which release it into the nearby creek.
