OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act continues to prove beneficial to Oak Ridge. On July 27, the second of four buildings set to be eliminated as part of footprint reduction efforts within the Biology Complex located at the Y-12 National Security Complex was demolished. The completed work eliminates another unneeded facility at Y-12, and eliminates the risk associated with the deteriorated facility.

Building 9220, a 22,211 square foot facility built in the mid-1960s, primarily housed research laboratories managed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory until operations ceased nearly a decade ago. Since that time, the building had deteriorated to a point where work in and around it was unsafe.

"These demolitions, made possible by the Recovery Act, represent a significant change in Y-12's landscape," said Y-12 Site Manager Ted Sherry. "By taking down these decaying facilities, we not only have removed potential hazards, but we also have reduced the footprint of Y-12, which saves taxpayer dollars in maintenance and security costs.”

The four-building demolition project at the Biology Complex will eliminate 30,693 cubic meters of waste, all of which will be dispositioned at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility and Y-12 Sanitary and Industrial Waste landfills in Oak Ridge.

There are a total of seven buildings in the Biology Complex, and four of those are being eliminated using Recovery Act funds. The first of the four buildings was razed on June 9, and two others (9211 and 9769) are scheduled for demolition later this summer. The 9220 work was completed in two days by Eagle Construction and Environmental Services LLC of Eastland, Texas.  The total cost to prepare and demolish the four Biology Complex buildings is approximately $26.5 million. The three remaining buildings in the Biology Complex will be demolished, but that work is not yet scheduled.

In total, the Recovery Act is funding seven major cleanup projects at Y-12. Those include: demolition of Building 9735, the 9206 filter house, and the four buildings in the Biology Complex; disposition of legacy material from buildings Alpha 5 and Beta 4; cleanup of the Old Salvage Yard; and remediation of the West End Mercury Area’s storm sewers.

The Recovery Act funds at Y-12 are part of $755 million received by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office Environmental Management program for projects in Oak Ridge. In total, 49 buildings across the Oak Ridge Reservation are being demolished using ARRA funds in addition to other projects ranging from tank and soils remediation, capping of old burial grounds, and expansion of the on-site waste disposal facility. The Recovery Act provides Oak Ridge the opportunity to begin much needed cleanup projects at Y-12, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the East Tennessee Technology Park, and the Transuranic Waste Processing Center.