It was a celebration of another milestone in Oak Ridge’s environmental cleanup
Crews have finished excavation of all the contaminated soil at the former K-25 Site.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) completed another key milestone in one of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup projects.
Congressional, state, and local leaders, along with private industry and officials from DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), gathered earlier this week at the East Tennessee Technology Park to celebrate the accomplishment.
The event highlighted crews finishing excavation of all the contaminated soil at the former Manhattan Project and Cold War-era uranium enrichment complex previously known as the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, or K-25 Site. That work involved removing and disposing more than 554,000 cubic yards of soil, equaling nearly 50,000 dump truck loads.
This milestone signifies the completion of major fieldwork at the East Tennessee Technology Park, and it allows DOE to transfer the remaining federally owned parcels of land at the site to the community for beneficial reuse.
“Today is a significant and meaningful step toward completing our ultimate mission at the East Tennessee Technology Park,” said OREM Manager Jay Mullis. “Our progress has transformed the site from an unusable liability into an economic asset for the Oak Ridge community.”
OREM and UCOR previously completed building demolitions at the site in 2020. That involved tearing down more than 500 structures with a combined footprint that could span 225 football fields. Since then, employees have been removing the foundation slabs and any impacted soil beneath them.
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