OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The United States Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Office of Environment Management completed another key milestone in one of the nation's largest environmental cleanup projects, the department said Wednesday.
Leaders with the state gathered on Wednesday at the East Tennessee Technology Park to celebrate the cleanup. The DOE said the event highlighted crews finishing the 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.
The department said the work involved removing and disposing of 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," the department said.
The DOE said demolitions at the site were completed in 2020, tearing down more than 500 structures with a combined footprint that could span 225 football fields. Employees have since been removing the foundation slabs and soil beneath them.
According to a release, OREM has given more than 1,700 acres to the community to help attract and generate new economic development for the region, with hundreds more to be donated in 2024. It said 25 businesses have located or announced plans to build on the parcels, bringing in $1.35 billion in investments and hiring an anticipated 1,400 people in the community.
"The focus of many of these recent industrial development efforts has been clean energy technology. Among those, Kairos Power began construction last month on its Hermes low-power demonstration reactor," the department said.