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Turning the lights out: Manhattan Project-era switchyard clean-up complete

Contractors just hauled the last trailer off the four-acre gravel site that was once the K-732 switchyard Friday, adding another four acres to the portion of the East Tennessee Technology Park that is ready to be reindustrialized.

The switchyard, constructed in 1944, was one of several that helped provide power to the uranium enrichment facilities that made up the Manhattan-project era Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The K-732 switchyard was built in 1944 to help power Manhattan Project-era uranium enrichment facilities at the old Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.

The plant used massive amounts of electricity; at one time it was TVA's largest customer in the power system. Switchyards like K-732 received electricity from TVA and transformed to the voltages to feed transformer banks at the large gaseous diffusion buildings on the site, like K-27.

"I think one of the biggest challenges was getting our arms around the history and the records," said Joey Brown, Senior Vice President of CTI and Associates Inc., the small business responsible for deactivating and decommissioning the switchyard.

"Once we got all that and assessed the site, there were a lot of safety related things that we needed to address," he said.

CTI had to remove asbestos and common hazardous waste before tearing down and cutting apart the switchyard's power structures. Some of those structures required specialized equipment, like three 250,000 pound condensers that had to be taken down and moved across public roads for disposal at Y-12. 

Workers removed extensive and transported three massive 110-ton condensers (pictured) during the cleanup.

Workers had to go inside of confined spaces like oil tanks that once housed materials rich in PCBs: chemicals known to have adverse health effects.

The carcinogen's use in oils and coolants has been largely phased out, but to safely handle the tanks, CTI still had to sample them.

"We had to address those separately, but the majority of work did not involve PCB's," Brown said.

Despite the risks, CTI managed to keep a pristine safety record on the job. No work-loss injuries occurred since the company took the project in summer 2015. "We made sure safety was the number one priority every day, and so we have more than 15,000 hours without an injury," Brown said.

CTI recouped more than $115,000 of the $3.8 million project by recycling oil, and high value metals at the switchyard, including more than 800 tons of steel, 28 tons of copper and seven tons of aluminum and brass.

CTI recycled metal components from the switchyard, like these, to recoup more than $150,000 of the $3.8 million project

 

"With China, the market for recycled metals is down significantly, but we had to sell it when we were ready to sell it," Brown said. " That's just a matter of timing and the world economy, So while we didn't get near as much money as we wanted, we did keep it out of the landfills, which was probably the bigger savings to the Energy Department."

The current landfill used for low-level waste from Oak Ridge nuclear facilities is expected to fill up by 2020.  The Department of Energy plans to construct a new environmental management waste disposal facility, for which the current budget request is about $5 million.

Brown said the company completed field work last week and is just finishing up some paperwork now. CTI began the project in summer 2015 and has had no work-loss throughout their time working on the project. 

CTI left two of the newer transformers at the switchyard in place for the City of Oak Ridge, signaling the developments to come.

The four-acre turnover is the latest step in Oak Ridge Environmental Management's plan to transform the former uranium site into a private industrial park. About 800 acres have already been turned over to the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, which will oversee the properties' sales. 

UCOR, the managing contractor for the ETTP cleanup, has said the rest of the land should be ready for turnover by 2020.