Story (02-25-2004)

Y-12's facelift moving forward

By Paul Parson, Oak Ridger Staff — As of this month, 130 buildings — totaling 700,000  square feet — have been demolished at the Y‑12 National Security Complex.

It's all part of a modernization effort at the Oak Ridge weapons plant.

"By the time we're finished with this, it's going to run into billions of dollars to put a new face on the plant," said Dennis Ruddy, president and general manager of BWXT, which manages Y‑12 for the federal government.

Construction of Y‑12 started in the early 1940s as part of World War II's Manhattan Project. The uranium enriched at Y‑12 ultimately fueled the "Little Boy" bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of the war in 1945.

Y‑12's modernization plan was actually unveiled in the late '90s.

To date, according to plant officials, more than $20 million of modification and repairs to existing buildings have been completed while well over six acres of roofs have been repaired or replaced. In addition, approximately $30 million in new or refurbished equipment has been installed in various facilities.

One aspect of Y‑12's modernization effort is a new highly enriched uranium storage facility, which Ruddy calls a "pivotal" part of the plant's facelift.

Design of the $250 million storage facility has been completed, with site preparation for the construction work to begin later this year. The storage facility will be about the size of at least three football fields and will be built in an area that is currently a parking lot, officials said this month.

In the past, however, Y‑12 representatives have said the storage facility would be the size of four football fields. A Y‑12 official could not confirm this morning if the size of the facility was actually being reduced.

Y‑12 is the nation's principal storehouse for weapons-usable uranium. And, last month, the plant received around 55,000 pounds of equipment from Libya's nuclear weapons program, including so-called feedstock and centrifuge parts — both of which are used to enrich uranium for weapons use.

One project that's currently under way at Y‑12 is the construction of a $40 million manufacturing facility to recycle and purify non-nuclear materials.

"It's about 30 to 33 percent complete," said Mark Sollenberger, the project's manager.

According to Sollenberger, the facility should be completed later this year, with a readiness review tentatively scheduled to begin in October and run through March 2005. The facility is expected to begin operations in 2005.

And, while buildings are going up at Y‑12, they are also coming down. The 130 structures that have been demolished so far vary in size, with some reducing the plant's footprint by 400 square feet while others cut the total plant size by 75,000 square feet.

Additional buildings beyond their useful life will be demolished under Y‑12's Infrastructure Reduction program, which decommissions and demolishes old, unneeded and unused buildings to reduce maintenance costs and clear the way for construction of new facilities as part of the plant's long-term modernization plan.

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Source: The Oak Ridger (February 25, 2004).