Re: Historic Facility

["Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com>]

At 02:44 PM 8/13/2002 -0400, Estabrooks, Bates (IHK) wrote:

>Thought that Radsafers might find the following article interesting.  It

>mentions one "our own."



[snip]





>Story last updated at 12:15 p.m. on Friday, August 9, 2002

>

>Fate unclear for signature Manhattan Beta-3 facility

>by R. Cathey Daniels

>Oak Ridger staff There are two-of-a-kind in the world, and one may be on 

>its way out of operation.

>Unfortunately for the so-called Beta-3 calutron building in Oak Ridge, it's

>slated to be the odd operation out.

>The production-level electromagnetic isotope enrichment facility, operated

>by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been in cold stand-by at the Y-12

>National Security Complex since 1999.

>The other facility is located in Sverdlovsk, Russia, and should the Oak

>Ridge production capability be destroyed, the Russian facility would possess

>the sole capacity of producing approximately 110 stable isotopes that can't

>be produced by any other enrichment technique, according to documents

>provided by the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee.



[snip]



>According to the documents, Environmental Management reviewed the facility

>in 1999 and specified 10 criteria to be met prior to transfer.

>Criteria included draining all mineral cooling oil from the magnets;

>draining all the transformer oil and removing the capacitors from all the

>power supplies; removing all chemicals, precious metals and nuclear

>materials; and removing all unattached items in the facility.

>"There's no reason to drain this oil and cause the internal components to

>rust, which would permanently disable these calutrons," said Gawarecki.

>"They are still usable, so why not keep the oil in them and keep them

>moth-balled? There's no difference in maintenance costs."

>Expense of meeting the decommissioning criteria has been a hurdle for

>transfer, according to the documents, as well as compliance with the

>National Historic Preservation Act, since the calutrons have been identified

>as one of the eight "signature facilities" of the Manhattan Project.



Were these criteria set because the "mineral oil" is PCB-laden? If this is 

the issue, it bears further discussion.



Based on the last thread I started, I'm not going to comment on the level 

of hysteria surrounding PCBs or the level of threat they caused, real or 

imagined. My understanding is that there are strict environmental laws 

surrounding the use and disposal of devices containing PCBs. I'm not being 

very definite as I have not come across this for about 12 years in my 

professional work.



Cheers,



Richard



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