A new Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., took a step closer to becoming reality Monday as U.S. lawmakers and Energy Department officials participated in a groundbreaking ceremony.
The facility is considered necessary for further cleanup at the DOE nuclear-weapon site, because once some of the old buildings are torn down, more contaminants could leak into groundwater.
Once built, in 2022, the new plant is expected to slash mercury levels at the East Fork Poplar Creek, which runs through Y-12, while also setting the stage for more extensive cleanup at the site. When operational, the mercury plant will be able to treat 3,000 gallons of water per minute and include a 2-million-gallon storage tank to collect stormwater, DOE said in a news release.
Oak Ridge Reservation cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) in September awarded a $1.4 million subcontract to Knoxville-based GEM Technologies for site preparation. The GEM Technologies contract involves limited demolition and replacement of some abandoned utilities.
Procurement is also underway for a contractor to perform the balance of construction on the treatment plant, which is scheduled to begin in 2018. Energy Department officials could not immediately be reached for comment Monday on the status of the procurement process.
“When operational, this facility will reduce the amount of mercury getting in our waterways to safe levels and make it possible for cleanup work to begin at Y-12,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in a press release. “There are a lot of big buildings on this site that we need to cleanup and tear down – and there is still a lot of mercury that is not accounted for.”
Alexander was joined at the groundbreaking by Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.).
Fleischmann and Brouillette also participated in a ribbon-cutting for the newly completed construction support building for Y-12’s Uranium Processing Facility, according to a press release from DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
The $27.5 million, 65,000-square-foot building will house 300 employees working on the set of buildings that will take over enriched uranium processing operations now conducted at aging facilities at Y-12. The UPF is scheduled for completion by 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion, after which the construction support building would be used for office and storage space.
