Oak Ridge Resumes Installing Structural Steel at Mercury Treatment Facility

Oak Ridge crews pour concrete at the Mercury Treatment Facility's headworks facility located at Outfall 200 at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor UCOR continue making steady progress on the construction of the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

"The work underway is moving this crucial infrastructure project closer to completion, and it will enable the next major phase of cleanup at Y-12," said Steve Clemons, OREM project manager.

That latest progress involves workers resuming erecting structural steel at the treatment plant after they finished installing three large sludge-settling tanks for the plant.

Oak Ridge workers have installed all three sludge-settling tanks at the Mercury Treatment Facility's treatment plant. With those installed, crews can resume installing structural steel at the facility.

The Mercury Treatment Facility project encompasses two components at two locations: a headworks facility and a treatment plant, both connected by a half-mile-long transfer pipeline.

The headworks facility will capture flow from East Fork Poplar Creek on the west end of Y-12, store excess stormwater collected during large rainfalls, remove grit and pump water via the pipeline to the treatment plant on the east side of Y-12.

A small business supporting OREM's cleanup, GEM Technologies is working with UCOR to perform this installation. The treatment plant still requires the installation of 760 pieces of steel with a combined weight of nearly 175 tons.

"Installation of the structural steel is a significant achievement," said Jack Huminsky, a UCOR construction engineer for the facility. "UCOR and GEM Technologies crews are working together to enable safe placement of the steel."

Concrete placement also continues at the headworks facility. So far this year, UCOR has poured more than 1,100 cubic yards, or 110 truckloads, of structural concrete.

"We have built and sustained a long-lasting partnership with UCOR in supporting mission critical projects across the Oak Ridge Reservation," said Kent DeRoos, GEM vice president of field services. "These partnerships are a vital component to exceeding client expectations while solving some of the nation's most complex challenges."

The Mercury Treatment Facility is essential infrastructure that allows OREM to fulfill its regulatory commitments to reduce mercury levels in the creek and begin large-scale cleanup at Y-12. When operational, it will limit and control potential mercury releases as crews demolish massive Manhattan Project and Cold War-era buildings and address the soil beneath them.

Once completed, the facility will process up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute and collect stormwater in a 2 million-gallon storage tank.

-Contributor: Ella Stewart