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RECOVERY ACT

Y-12 used more than $100,000 of Recovery Act funding to purchase boxes from Container Technologies Inc., a local small business.

The nearly $267 million that Y‑12 received under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will fund seven environmental management projects, slated for completion in 2011. This section introduces three of those projects: Alpha 5 Legacy Material Removal, Beta 4 Legacy Material Removal and the Old Salvage Yard Cleanup.

The funding is part of the $755 million distributed by DOE's Oak Ridge Office Environmental Management program.

Legacy materials to leave Alpha 5

“Alpha 5 was once a beehive of activity,” said Y‑12 historian Ray Smith. “During the Cold War, it was the scene of relentless production of nuclear weapon secondaries.” Recently, operations were consolidated and relegated to other buildings. Now and for the next 2 years, Alpha 5 (Building 9201-5) is again a lively locale, as Recovery Act funding pays for the removal of all the legacy materials inside, including material dating back to the Cold War.

At more than 600,000 ft2, Alpha 5 is Y‑12's largest building and is nearly four and a half times bigger than the New Hope Center, the site's public interface building. “It is an immense facility,” stressed Rick Brooksbank, project manager for the Alpha 5 Legacy Material Disposition project. “For the past 15 years, some mission-critical items and nuclear materials have been removed from Alpha 5, but this new ARRA work scope is orders of magnitude larger than what's been done before.”

Nearly 700,000 ft3 of legacy materials are being removed from the facility under ARRA. The Alpha 5 project represents more than 40% of Y‑12's total ARRA funding.

“Alpha 5 is inside Y‑12's high security area, which automatically adds cost,” explained Catherine Schidel, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facility representative. “Also, most of the Alpha 5 materials and equipment are not already packaged, so the work is more labor intensive.”

The facility's contamination contributes as well. “Alpha 5's contamination requires extensive additional Industrial Hygiene support,” she noted, “and associated personal protective equipment for workers adds necessary expense.” Some Recovery Act funds will be used for hiring more health and safety professionals to ensure that the 100 or so Alpha 5 workers are adequately protected.

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