Oak Ridge Waste Management Facility Expansion Ahead Of Schedule, Under Budget
16 June 2010
OAK RIDGE, Tennessee
Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC, (BJC) the lead contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation Environmental Management program in Tennessee, recently completed an expansion of the program’s Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) a month ahead of schedule and under budget. This expansion is part of BJC’s work for the U.S. Department of Energy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The EMWMF is a state-of-the-art disposal facility for low-level nuclear and other hazardous wastes generated during environmental cleanup activities at the East Tennessee Technology Park, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Y-12 National Security Complex. The recent expansion has added 465,000 cubic yards (356,000 cubic meters) of additional disposal capability to EMWMF. As a result, much of the waste generated during Oak Ridge’s environmental cleanup activities managed by BJC can now be disposed of locally, saving millions of dollars in shipping costs associated with off-site disposal. The latest expansion brings the facility's total capacity to about 1.7 million cubic yards (1.3 million cubic meters).
More than a million tons of waste (about 78,000 shipments) has been disposed of at EMWMF since it began operations in May 2002, all without a lost-workday injury.