Oak Ridge Crews Begin Removing Largest Facility Yet at Y-12

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its contractor UCOR have kicked off the second phase of demolition at the Alpha-2 complex at the Y-12 National Security Complex, starting with teardown of the largest structure yet at the complex.

Crews have initiated demolition on Building 9201-2, also known as Alpha-2. The massive 2.5-acre Manhattan Project-era structure stands three stories tall and measures 325,000 square feet.

“Employees have worked incredibly hard preparing this facility for demolition since 2020,” OREM Project Manager Morgan Carden said. “It was a big task to this point, and now we have another large task ahead of us to bring this building down.”

The project also marks the first teardown of a former uranium enrichment building at Y-12.

Alpha-2 is categorized as a high-risk excess contaminated facility, and its removal eliminates hazards and opens land for national security missions moving forward.

The Oak Ridge Reservation contains more high-risk excess contaminated facilities than any other DOE site in the nation. These facilities do not support current missions, and they can pose risks to the surrounding areas due to their deteriorated condition and contents.

OREM and UCOR’s projects are removing these structures to enhance safety and enable modernization.

The previous project phase involved tearing down ancillary facilities near Alpha-2, achieving a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management2024 priority.

“The footprint where we’re working is extremely tight, so starting demolition with the clearing of the Carpentry Shop gave us room to safely stage our demolition equipment and maintain street access around the facility,” said UCOR Y-12 Area Project Manager Chad York.

He continued, “Our crews did an amazing job to get us to this stage, clearing the structure and filling the building basement with more than 30,000 cubic yards, the equivalent of 3,200 cement trucks, of controlled low-strength material to ensure our heavy equipment can safely bring down the entire structure and remove the debris.”

Alpha-2 was constructed in 1944 for uranium enrichment using an electromagnetic separation process. The facility housed equipment monitored by the famed “Calutron Girls.” Although the equipment produced uranium-235 to fuel the first atomic bomb, those workers didn’t know what they were working on until after the bomb was dropped in 1945.

The demolition project is slated for completion in 2027.

-Contributor: Carol Hendrycks