Oak Ridge crews continue demolition work on old uranium-enrichment building
The building was built while work was ongoing on the Manhattan Project, which stretched throughout the mid-1940s.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Editor’s Note: This story was corrected to reflect that demolition work on the Alpha-2 building is projected to be finished by 2027, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Demolition work on a former uranium enrichment building dating back to the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge is progressing.
The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and its cleanup contractor, United Cleanup Oak Ridge, began demolishing the old Alpha-2 building in fall 2024.
The building is around 2.5 acres large and is three stories tall, measuring around 325,000 square feet, making it the largest demolition project to date on the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Consolidated Nuclear Security, the contractor that operates Y-12, said it will be providing an update on May 14 on the ongoing transformation of the site and future demolition projects.
The demolition of Alpha-2 is slated to be finished in 2027, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
In February 2025, crews brought down the south side of the Alpha-2 building, removing roughly a tenth of the structure. The next step was to remove the northeast portion and high bay portions of the building, which required crews to set up special high-reach equipment.
“Safely and successfully removing this portion of the building is a crucial first step as we work to accomplish the largest demolition project yet at Y-12,” said OREM Project Manager Morgan Carden. “Removal of the south side gives our crews more room to work with in a very tight footprint. These crews have made outstanding progress and preparations are underway to keep that momentum going.”
Alpha-2 is one of the buildings still standing from the Manhattan Project era, which stretched throughout the mid-1940s and resulted in the United States’ first atomic weapons. The building was built in 1944 and used for uranium enrichment, although workers did not know they were working to build the first atomic weapons until after 1945.
Other Manhattan Project and Cold War-era facilities across nearly two dozen acres are being deactivated and prepped for demolition on the Oak Ridge National Lab campus and Y-12. Those include Beta-1, a 300,000-square-foot uranium enrichment facility at Y-12, and several old research reactors and labs at ORNL.
The deactivation work also includes one of the largest and most complex demolition projects at Y-12: Alpha-4. Deactivation work on the massive 4-story, 500,000-square-foot lithium separation facility began in the early 2020s and is expected to continue to prep the high-risk facility for teardown.
Lithium separation at Alpha-4 required the use of large amounts of mercury, which contaminated the equipment, building structure and surrounding soil. In order to safely demolish the building without causing significantly more mercury contamination in East Fork Poplar Creek, crews began constructing a mercury treatment facility to capture water and treat any mercury releases caused by crews tearing down Alpha-4.
As of November 2024, work on the mercury treatment facility was still underway. Once finished, crews said it will reduce mercury levels in the creek and control any potential mercury releases from Alpha-4’s demolition.
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