  An aerial perspective of the 32-acre parcel the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management recently transferred at the East Tennessee Technology Park. The flat terrain is ideal for development, and there is already interest from businesses to reuse the land.
Cleanup program transfers 32-acre parcel at former production site for reindustrialization
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor UCOR’s successful cleanup of a former uranium enrichment complex continues to boost economic development opportunities for the region, with the latest providing a 32-acre parcel for private sector use.
OREM recently completed the land transfer at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) to the Industrial Development Board of Oak Ridge, bringing the site’s total amount of property transferred from federal ownership for economic reuse to 1,832 acres.
Tennessee law enables the board to acquire, own, lease and dispose of properties to promote industry and to develop trade by attracting manufacturing, industrial and commercial enterprises to Oak Ridge.
“The economic development that’s happening today at ETTP is a testament to the value and impact of our cleanup mission,” said Mark McIntosh, OREM’s ETTP portfolio federal project director. “It’s rewarding to see the nuclear legacy come full circle here. Our projects cleared away some of the nation’s oldest enrichment facilities, and now that space is being reused as the home for the next generation of nuclear companies.”
 A view of the East Tennessee Technology Park, previously known as the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, before cleanup. The K-27 and K-29 building are highlighted. K-27 was demolished in 2016 and K-29 was demolished in 2006.
The transferred parcel once served as the site of the K-27 and K-29 buildings, two of five massive gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment facilities that operated there for decades.
The K-27 Building, built in 1945, covered 383,000 square feet and was demolished in 2016. The K-29 Building, which spanned 291,000 square feet, began operating in 1951 and was demolished in 2006.
ETTP, formerly known as the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operated from the mid-1940s until 1985. Initially used to enrich uranium used in the nuclear weapon that helped end World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, the plant later produced enriched uranium for defense missions and commercial power.
OREM and UCOR completed major field work at ETTP last year, culminating more than 20 years of cleanup. Along the way, Oak Ridge became the first site in the world to remove a former enrichment complex, and the first U.S. Department of Energy site to pursue reindustrialization.
 The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management’s cleanup and land transfers have transformed the East Tennessee Technology Park from a shuttered uranium enrichment complex into a privately owned industrial park that’s ready for new growth.
Cleanup and land transfers have transformed the site from a government-owned, shuttered uranium enrichment complex into a privately owned industrial park that has become a hub for nuclear energy development.
That land is now home to more than 25 businesses that are making a projected capital investment of $7 billion, and they expect to generate 1,700 private sector jobs.
“As evidenced by this latest property transfer, the cleanup of ETTP has provided numerous economic opportunities for the region,” said Ashley Saunders, UCOR environmental programs and stewardship manager. “The dilapidated, crumbling structures that once dotted the site have been replaced with new businesses and attractive parcels ready for development, and more property will be available in the future.”
The next property transfer planned at ETTP will be a 3.5-acre tract adjacent to the K-27 and K-29 area, and the process is also underway to transfer a 667-acre parcel near ETTP in coming months.
-Contributor: Ryan Getsi
 Idaho Cleanup Project crews recently transferred liquid sodium-bearing waste from Tank 188 to Tank 189, leaving only two waste tanks — 187 and 189 — to be treated at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit. The three tanks and a spare vessel will then be washed and grouted.
It was the first transfer of sodium-bearing waste from tank to tank at the Idaho National Laboratory Site since the early 2000s
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Cleanup crews recently transferred more than 20,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste from one 300,000-gallon storage tank to another to reduce the environmental footprint of three underground waste tanks at the Idaho National Laboratory Site and expedite their closure.
Benefits of the waste transfer are many. It reduces the risk of the single-walled, stainless steel tank leaking, makes progress on a regulatory commitment, mixes waste forms in the receiving tank to benefit further waste treatment, and ensures uninterrupted tank waste processing at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) when it is set to resume operations in late spring or early summer this year.
“This was the first transfer of sodium-bearing waste from tank to tank since the early 2000s,” said Operations Manager Ryan DeMott. “Because the transfer lasted about 10 hours and was accomplished across multiple shifts, it took collaboration from multiple teams to keep the transfer going and ensure constant monitoring was in place.”
Idaho Cleanup Project crews at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center used existing infrastructure to empty Tank 188 to its heel, with the liquid waste being transferred to Tank 189. IWTU will process liquid waste from tanks 187 and 189. A fourth tank, 190, has always been on hand as a spare vessel, but it hasn’t been used.
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which has Resource Conservation and Recovery Act authority over the tank farm, approved the waste transfer. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management had been paying penalties of $6,000 each day to DEQ for the three remaining tanks in the tank farm that contain liquid waste. With the transfer consolidating sodium-bearing waste to two tanks, the state has reduced the daily penalty to $4,000.
“I want to personally thank the state for working with us to affect this transfer,” said Dan Coyne, president of Idaho Environmental Coalition, the site’s cleanup contractor. “Our regulators are crucial to our cleanup success. Both the state and Environmental Protection Agency have supported a bias for action, which benefits our mission and gets cleanup accomplished sooner.”
Liquid waste in the tank farm was generated during the decontamination of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing lines. The IWTU was constructed to convert about 900,000 gallons of waste from the three tanks to a more stable granular solid using steam-reforming technology. To date, IWTU has treated 279,000 gallons of waste. Once converted to a solid, the waste is transferred to stainless steel canisters, loaded into concrete vaults and stored in a product storage building onsite until a permanent repository becomes available.
Following the conclusion of liquid waste treatment, all four tanks will be washed, grouted with concrete, and closed under state and federal regulations. Ultimately, a cap will be constructed over the entire tank farm to protect the underlying Snake River Plain Aquifer.
This work is being conducted under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in support of the 1995 Idaho Settlement Agreement.
-Contributor: Erik Simpson
 Crews with Hanford Site contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company recently installed a third air stripper tower that will help accelerate groundwater cleanup under Hanford’s Central Plateau.
RICHLAND, Wash. — Crews recently installed a new treatment tower at the Hanford Site, giving a major boost to a groundwater cleanup effort that processes billions of gallons of contaminated water each year.
The 65-foot-tall air stripper tower was added to the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility, Hanford's largest groundwater treatment plant. This addition will increase the facility's water treatment capacity and help remove radioactive and chemical contamination. Crews will continue upgrading related infrastructure through 2025, with the new system expected to begin operating early next year.
Since the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility began operating in 2012, it has used air stripping technology to remove contaminants from groundwater under Hanford’s Central Plateau. Air stripping works by blowing air through water, causing certain chemicals to evaporate and separate from the liquid. To date, the system has removed about 55,000 pounds of carbon tetrachloride.
“Installing this new air stripper is a major step toward accelerating groundwater cleanup at Hanford and ensuring the protection of the Columbia River," said Naomi Jaschke, Hanford Field Office project director for the Soil and Groundwater Division. “It’s just one of many recent enhancements performed onsite to support our ongoing cleanup mission.”
 EMTV: Witness the precision and expertise as a massive crane lifts and positions a 65-foot-tall air stripper tower at the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility, the Hanford Site's largest groundwater treatment plant.
The new tower follows a major groundwater treatment expansion completed last summer, which increased the facility's processing capacity by 36%. Once the third tower is fully operational, the site will be able to treat up to 3,800 gallons of groundwater per minute — a substantial increase over its original capacity of 2,500 gallons per minute.
"The successful installation of the third tower is a testament to the dedication and teamwork of everyone involved," said Jason Cook, project construction manager for Hanford contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company. "From planning to engineering to construction, our crews worked diligently to ensure this highly complex project was completed safely."
Today, the 200 West Pump and Treat Facility and five smaller treatment plants along the site’s Columbia River Corridor collectively treat more than 2.2 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater each year. Since Hanford's groundwater cleanup program began in the 1990s, crews have treated over 35 billion gallons and removed nearly 700 tons of radioactive and chemical contamination.
 Lisa Tanner, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) small business liaison officer, and Dave Dietz, SRNS senior director of supply chain procurement, accept the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Excellence in Services during the recent National Small Business Week ceremony.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Awards for Excellence awards recognize contractors other than small businesses that have excelled in using small businesses as suppliers and subcontractors in various industries.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Receives the 2025 Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Excellence in Services
AIKEN, S.C. — The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently honored a Savannah River Site contractor with the prestigious 2025 Dwight D. Eisenhower Award for Excellence in Services for its small business programs.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) received the award during the SBA’s National Small Business Week ceremony in Washington, D.C.
“This Dwight D. Eisenhower Award represents the highest honor for a contractor as a small business advocate,” said Jay Johnson, SRNS Business Services deputy senior vice president and chief contracting officer. “I’m so proud of the SRNS Supply Chain Management Procurement team for their intentional actions to fully leverage the capability and expertise of our small businesses.”
Since 2018, SRNS small business subcontracts to procure site materials and services have created 15,700 local jobs and 82,800 regional positions.
Over the last five years, SRNS has spent $2.6 billion dollars on subcontracts with small businesses, representing 66% of its subcontracts. In fiscal year (FY) 2024 alone, SRNS set a record of $798 million in subcontracts to local, regional and national small businesses.
Additionally, SRNS continues to assist small businesses navigating contract award processes to ensure they are considered for subcontracting opportunities supporting the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“We are dedicated to working with and helping small businesses grow, and we take pride in opportunities made available to work with SRNS,” SRNS Small Business Liaison Officer Lisa Tanner said. “SRNS executes a small-business-first approach for procurements, with some buyers awarding over 93% of work, in any given month, to small businesses.”
Notable contributions of the SRNS Small Business Program:
- Increased small business engagement by participating in 21 supplier outreach events in FY24;
- Increased the number of small businesses enrolled in the DOE Mentor-Protégé Program, with overall investment growing from $400,000 to $41 million since 2015;
- Implemented a supplier portal to foster a diverse supplier base and ensure adherence to relevant regulations; and
- Maintained a supplier database that SRNS buyers use as a sourcing tool.
-Contributor: Mackenzie McNabb
 Paducah Innovation Hub student Jacob Hodge, left, explains his Student Annual Site Environmental Report research findings to Murray State University Assistant Professor Eric Batts. The university directed the Student ASER program while working closely with faculty and students from Paducah Tilghman High School and the Paducah Innovation Hub.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — High school students in Ohio and Kentucky, local universities and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) collaborated to develop and publish this year’s Student Summary of the Annual Site Environmental Report, commonly referred to as the Student ASER.
“The Student ASER is an opportunity to involve local students in science-based activities that are directly associated with their community,” PPPO Manager Joel Bradburne said. “It is just one of several PPPO educational outreach programs to boost STEM education and prepare a pipeline of talent to fill the jobs of tomorrow.”
The Student ASER provides a visual, condensed and non-technical summary of EM’s annual ASER, an environmental report that captures results from monitoring on and around PPPO’s cleanup sites. The goals of the Student ASER are to educate local high school students about cleanup activities at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites while they learn about potential career opportunities. They create two Student ASERs, one for the Portsmouth Site and one for the Paducah Site.
The Student ASER allows students to develop materials to facilitate conversations within their communities concerning environmental remediation as well as deactivation and demolition. To better understand the content, students work with subject matter experts, attend field trips and spend months learning about each site’s history and deactivation and demolition work.
 Students participating in the Student Annual Site Environmental Report from Valley High School meet with Portsmouth Site contractors to discuss cleanup projects, potential careers and educational requirements.
In Ohio, Waverly and Valley high school students met biweekly throughout the current school year with guest speakers from the Portsmouth Site, Ohio University and the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, a community reuse organization, to learn about the site’s history and the safe cleanup progress to prepare the Portsmouth Site for future reindustrialization.
The students worked with Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service to create posters depicting sections of the ASER. The posters were then presented at a public academic expo.
“We had two schools working on the project this year: Waverly, which has supported the program several times throughout its 14-year history, and Valley from neighboring Scioto County, which was participating for the first time,” Federal Coordinator Greg Simonton said. “The longevity and growth of the program is a great example of how we are able to give local students educational opportunities that go beyond the classroom.”
Similarly, in Kentucky, students from Paducah Tilghman High School and the Paducah Innovation Hub visited the Paducah Site and heard from EM and contractor personnel while learning about the site’s history, current mission and future reuse plans.
In a first-time collaboration, those students worked with Murray State University personnel to produce the Student ASER. They also displayed their research findings via poster presentations to personnel from EM, Murray State University and the public.
“Murray State University laid a solid foundation in its inaugural year working with the Student ASER project alongside Paducah Tilghman High School and the Paducah Innovation Hub,” General Engineer Mitchell Guthrie said. “We look forward to continuing our relationship with the university as we take the program to new heights.”
The ASER is key to PPPO’s effort to inform the public about environmental conditions at the Portsmouth and Paducah sites and offers a detailed overview of environmental activities each year. Reports can be viewed on the PPPO website for both Portsmouth and Paducah.
-Contributors: Zachary Boyarski, Melissa Green
 Savannah River Mission Completion created a new system of remote-controlled valves to manage the flow of radioactive liquid waste into and out of the strip effluent lag storage program. The tool will also make the job of routing the waste much quicker, as the valves will be opened and closed by way of small, remote-controlled electric motors built into the valves. The unit is shown here prior to its installation in the Savannah River Site Liquid Waste Program.
AIKEN, S.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management and its liquid waste contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) have improved workflow by creating a buffer area for radioactive waste transferred between two critical waste processing facilities.
Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) repurposed two 5,000-gallon holding tanks to serve as “lag storage” between the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) and the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The lag storage provides needed space to hold the waste, called strip effluent, transferred from SWPF before being processed at DWPF.
Strip effluent is the high-activity radioactive waste that has been stripped from the larger liquid waste stream at SWPF. It is then sent to DWPF to undergo vitrification, which converts the waste into a solidified glass form suitable for long term storage and safe disposal.
SRMC Chief Operations Officer Wyatt Clark said this new storage system is an upgrade needed to continue production improvements.
“The liquid waste system is a highly integrated system, meaning the productivity of one plant is directly dependent on the availability of another,” Clark said. “Our team was very creative by identifying this need and implementing a lag storage solution using repurposed equipment.”
The new cost-effective approach means SRMC can operate the two facilities more independently.
“That way, if DWPF is down for maintenance, SWPF can continue to process and transfer feed into this new temporary storage. When DWPF returns online, the feed will be readily available,” Clark said.
Another part of this improvement effort was the creation of a new tool to remotely manage the movement of the waste in and out of the lag storage tanks at DWPF. The tool, which is a system of valves designed and built by SRMC employees, uses remote-control switches to allow for the routing of strip effluent from SWPF to either DWPF for processing or to one of the temporary holding tanks.
“This remote routing system gives us more than one destination for the waste transferred out of SWPF,” Clark continued. “It gives us additional flexibility to strengthen our production. Each process improvement we implement brings us closer to reaching our optimum rate of 9 million gallons per year at SWPF.”
The new tool, developed by SRMC Engineering and Maintenance personnel, will also make the job of routing the waste much quicker, as the valves will be opened and closed by way of small, electric motors encased in stainless steel that are connected to the valves.
In the past, a remote-controlled crane would perform that 36-hour function by removing the cell cover from the feed pipes and setting the cover aside. Next, the crane would use a wrench to turn the valves and, once that task was performed, the crane would replace the covers on the pipes. This new motorized valving system will perform the routing process in approximately one-sixth the time previously required.
Tony Robinson, EM acting assistant manager for waste disposition at SRS, believes this modernization of the routing system will help keep the SRS Liquid Waste Program on track.
“Innovation has always been at the heart of our Liquid Waste Program at SRS,” Robinson said. “Whether it’s new technologies or new uses for old technologies, working smarter helps us also work safer.”
-Contributor: Jim Beasley
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