Environmental Management is the largest Oak Ridge program, with cleanup programs underway to correct the legacies remaining from more than 50 years of energy research and weapons production. The program includes an aggressive effort to complete the majority of environmental cleanup by 2011, including the majority of the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) site. Already, significant progress has been made in cleaning up large gaseous diffusion plant buildings at this site.
Because of past practices, portions of land and facilities on the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) are contaminated with radioactive elements, mercury, asbestos, PCBs, and industrial wastes. The ORR is on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) national priorities list and is being cleaned up under a federal facilities agreement with EPA and the State of Tennessee.
The Oak Ridge Environmental Management Program has built a successful track record in Oak Ridge since its inception in 1989. Within the current cleanup mission, projects completed include the cleanup of 145 acres of land in the Melton Valley area of the Oak Ridge Reservation, cleanout of former gaseous diffusion plant buildings K-31 and K-33 to prepare them for future uses, removal and disposition of containers of legacy waste that had been in storage for years and the shipment of 6,000 Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride cylinders off the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) site. The largest remaining project at ETTP includes demolition of the K-25 Building, a large gaseous diffusion plant that ceased enriching uranium in 1964 and covers 44 acres under one roof, making it one of the most challenging cleanup projects among DOE sites nationwide. A restructured cleanup contract enables this and other priority projects at ETTP to be completed by 2011. Commitments also include smaller cleanup projects at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex which fall within the Environmental Management Program scope.
ORO's EM Program is managed by Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC, along with prime contracts with EnergX, LLC and Isotek Systems, LLC. A Site Specific Advisory Board, composed of citizen volunteers, provides input on the Oak Ridge cleanup program.