Estimates put near $300 million price tag on uranium plant demolition.
The US Department of Energy estimates it will cost about $292 million to demolish K-27, a highly deteriorated uranium-enrichment plant that hasn’t operated since 1964.
That’s about five times what it cost to demolish the nearby K-31 building — even though K-31 was twice as large as the 383,000-square-foot K-27.
There are reasons, of course, for the cost difference.
Unlike K-31, which was essentially an empty shell of a building when workers began demolishing it last fall, K-27 still houses its original processing equipment. It’s loaded with hazardous materials, including deposits of fissionable uranium and toxic chemicals of all sorts.
According to Ben Williams, a spokesman for the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, only a third of the projected K-27 cost will be spent on actual demolition. The rest of the federal funding is to prepare the uranium facility so it can be taken down safely and securely without spreading the contaminants.
URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, or UCOR, the DOE’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge, is managing the K-27 project, and as many as 500 workers are involved.
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