The cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio has brought down the 56-acre X-326 Process Building, the agency said Thursday.
The demolition of X-326 down to the slab is a big milestone for the DOE Office of Environmental Management and was telegraphed last week by speakers for the agency and contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth during the Radwaste Summit, hosted by Exchange Monitor Publications near Las Vegas.
“This represents a major step forward in efforts to provide a safe, clean site for future reindustrialization,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), in the DOE press release.
Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White identified the X-326 demolition as a priority goal for the cleanup office during 2022.
The 1950s structure is one of a trio of mammoth process buildings designed to work together in a cascade alignment to enrich uranium. The X-333 Building and the X-330 Building are also targeted to come down by 2030.
Construction debris from the process buildings are to be disposed of at the On-Site Disposal Cell at Portsmouth.
While the demolition of X-326 itself started last May, but here have been various delays in the deactivation of the half-mile-long building since Fluor-BWXT started work under its contract with DOE in 2011. Deactivation, making a structure safe for teardown, slipped to 2018 from 2016. Demolition, once supposed to be underway by 2018, slipped eventually to 2021.
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