D&D Services

At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) EnergX provided programmatic and waste management/transportation support for the ARRA-funded D&D of Building 3026 a former Radioisotope Development Laboratory. EnergX’s team was recognized as the Subcontractor of the Year by UT-Battelle for our efforts on this important D&D project. This long-vacant facility on the Laboratory’s central campus was demolished and all waste shipped to the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) in Oak Ridge. The demolition of Building 3026 (as it is known today) eliminated a fire hazard and eased safety concerns as cleanup activity ramps up in ORNL’s historic district. The old building was located between two other nuclear facilities and not far from the main research campus. This was the first ARRA demolition project in Oak Ridge.

“We are pleased to announce the beginning of safe demolition on this facility, an important step in reducing the legacy cleanup footprint at Oak Ridge National Lab,” said Gerald Boyd, Manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office. “Because of this Recovery Act funding, we are able to quickly remove a building that needs to be demolished due to safety issues.” Building 3026, as the facility is known today, dates back to the Manhattan Project and postwar era, when one of the Laboratory’s primary missions was the production of radioisotopes for medical, research, and industrial uses.

Constructed from 1943-45, the building contained specially-shielded work areas, called hot cells, where radioisotopes from ORNL’s Graphite Reactor and succeeding reactors were processed for shipment. The approximately 20,000-square-foot wooden facility has been inactive for 20 years and has sections of the roof that have collapsed. The building’s demolition is part of a long-term central campus cleanup strategy and will clear space for development of new facilities in a key area of the National Laboratory.