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According to John Krueger, the B&W manager who's heading Y-12's work on the Integrated Facilities Disposition Program, the costs for Alpha-5 will be about $873 million. That's about 11.8 percent of the total projected cost of IFDP at Y-12, he said. The Alpha-5 estimate includes utility reconfiguration and excess equipment disposition, he said. There's more on Alpha-5 on Knoxnews.com. Here's the link. Also more info below:

The Aug. 16 water-line break that flooded the historic Alpha-1 facility at Y-12 has cost $1.2 million to date, and most of that was spent pumping 250,000 gallons of water, silt and mud from the big building's basement and wiping equipment clean. That's the latest news from John Krueger, B&W Y-12's director of waste operations, who also heads the plant's planning for future cleanup projects. "There actually was very little damage to the actual building or the equipmnt inside," Krueger said.

Incident during warhead assembly was violation of rules OAK RIDGE - A worker at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant admitted using handwritten crib notes - a violation of procedures - during a warhead assembly operation earlier this year, leading to a temporary shutdown of those activities. An error occurred during the operation as a direct result of the worker using the cheat sheet, according to a report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The operator had copied the part sizes from a specification sheet for a different nuclear weapons unit than the one actually being assembled, the report said.

Suffice it to say, Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, has not been very pleased with the NNSA's treatment of public information in recent years regarding operations at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. He also wasn't happy when the feds at Y-12 recently turned down a request for a tour during Dr. Helen Caldicott's upcoming visit.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gives notice of a decision to designate a class of employees at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On August 15, 2008, the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: All employees of the Department of Energy (DOE), its predecessor agencies, and DOE contractors or subcontractors who worked at the Y- 12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee from March 1, 1943 through December 31, 1947 for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the Special Exposure Cohort.

The government has issued a $123,750 fine against B&W Technical Services, the contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, for safety violations related to a uranium chip fire in 2007. More than 100 workers received radiation doses due to inhalation of airborne radioactive material created by the fire, according to the report released today.

OAK RIDGE - In separate incidents barely a week apart in April, nuclear warhead parts were dropped at the Y-12 National Security Complex, but a plant spokesman said today there was no threat of a nuclear explosion.

About 31,000 cubic yards of radioactively contaminated scrap and other waste materials are being removed from the seven-acre scrap yard at Y-12, which was used for storage since the early 1970s. Security, as with many things at the nuclear weapons plant, is a complicating factor. The plant's PIDAS (Perimeter Intrustion Detection Assessment System) runs through the middle of the scrap yard, meaning that part of the yard is inside the high-security "protected area." According to John Krueger, the project director for Recovery Act cleanup work, the cleanup managers worked with Y-12 security to construct a special fence around the area of concern, thus easing the requirements. Workers still have to be escorted to that section of the scrap yard, but it does allow for use of uncleared workers on the project, he said.

My Wednesday column is about the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 and its place in the growing debate about what to do with the nuclear weapons complex of the future. UPF's actual price tag is still a bit of a mystery, with varying estimates in the range of $2 billion or thereabouts, and there are real questions about how the major project will fare as the Obama administration proceeds and develops its nuclear defense posture. The proposed UPF would replace Y-12's main production center, an antique known as 9212, and would become the biggest cog yet in the Oak Ridge plant's modernization campaign. The project is currently in a preliminary design phase known as Critical Decision-1. The spending level on UPF this year is $85 million, according to Steven Wyatt of the NNSA's Oak Ridge office.

Y-12 may become a key battleground as the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex is debated in coming months and beyond. In particular, the government's decision on whether to proceed with the Uranium Processing Facility - a new production center at Oak Ridge - is likely to be a negotiable item as the Obama administration's view of the world and strategy for nuclear defense begin to play out. There doesn't seem to be any question that the nation's weapons stockpile will continue to be drawn down. How quickly and to what extent are still up for grabs.

"The National Nuclear Security Administration says it has authorized the start-up of the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. NNSA officials said the opening of the "ultra-secure" warehouse facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex -- near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee -- marks a major milestone in its efforts to create a modern, 21st century nuclear security enterprise. The $549 million facility is the Y-12's largest construction project in more than 40 years. It is designed to consolidate enriched uranium storage into a single state-of-the-art facility that reduces operating costs and improves security, efficiency and operations, officials said."

"There's a pending application before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an export license to ship 160 kilograms of uranium (enriched to 93.5 percent U-235) from the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge to France for use as fuel in the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) near Grenoble. According to information from Y-12, it would be the first shipment of highly enriched uranium to France since 1991. Information about the shipment was reported several days ago on the blog maintained by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, which indicated the fuel needs for the French reactor previously had been provided by Russia."

"In the run-up to the Nuclear Security Summit, the Project On Government Oversight said cancellation of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 should be among the U.S. commitments. Here's what POGO said on UPF: "The U.S. should cancel the construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Y-12 National Security Complex, which creates a long-term mission for large stocks of HEU to be available for the production of up to 200 new secondaries per year. The highly-respected JASON group's recent study found that the nation's nuclear warheads, including the HEU secondaries, can continue to be extended safely and certifiably for decades. Without the UPF, the U.S. still has the capacity to manufacture new secondaries. The $3.5 billion estimated cost of UPF can be reallocated towards the downblending budget.""

"Here's the staff memo today from ORNL Director Thom Mason, explaining the separation of benefits between ORNL and Y-12. It is followed by a Q&A on the separation, which includes the split up of the pension fund. The change is supposed to take place sometime later this summer, according to the lab. Y-12 has not responded to multiple requests for info. SEPARATION OF BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION"

"A peace group says the government and its contractors are starting work on a big project at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant before it's fully approved and before some environmental impacts have been assessed. In a statement released Wednesday, the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said the Department of Energy should halt all site preparation and preliminary construction activities for the Uranium Processing Facility - a proposed multi-billion-dollar production facility at Y-12. "DOE is getting the cart way out in front of the horse," Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of OREPA, said by e-mail. The final Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement required for construction of UPF has not yet been issued, and a Record of Decision is not expected for several months."

I've written on multiple occasions about the projects underway, with much of the money coming from the Recovery Act, to expand the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill in Oak Ridge. Less attention, however, has been given to the work to expand the sanitary landfills on Chestnut Ridge not far from the Y-12 National Security Complex. According to Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, a request for proposals (RFP) is to be issued by the end of December, seeking bids for the landfill expansion and related projects. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for BJC, said there are three active landfills on Chestnut Ridge -- Landfiill IV (industrial waste); V (sanitary waste) and VII (construction/demolition waste)

I've written on multiple occasions about the projects underway, with much of the money coming from the Recovery Act, to expand the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill in Oak Ridge. Less attention, however, has been given to the work to expand the sanitary landfills on Chestnut Ridge not far from the Y-12 National Security Complex. According to Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, a request for proposals (RFP) is to be issued by the end of December, seeking bids for the landfill expansion and related projects. Dennis Hill, a spokesman for BJC, said there are three active landfills on Chestnut Ridge -- Landfiill IV (industrial waste); V (sanitary waste) and VII (construction/demolition waste)

Elected officials weighed in today on the final step in the Bush adminstration's planning for transformation of the nuclear weapons complex. Here are comments released from offices of U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker and U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp (all Republicans): Alexander: "Completion of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 will help reduce the footprint of our nuclear processing operations from 150 acres to 15 acres and save $200 million a year in security costs. Updating the facilities at Y-12 is both fiscally responsible and necessary for national security and it will help keep Tennessee at the forefront of leadership in science and technology."

The government on Tuesday ordered 12 tons of bomb-grade uranium converted into commercial reactor fuel as backup in case another source of fuel from weapon ingredients is delayed. The highly enriched uranium, already declared surplus for the nation's nuclear arsenal, will come from the vast storage vaults at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. The material will be converted or "down-blended" at the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin, Tenn., into about 220 tons of low-enriched uranium suitable for commercial reactors. The work will begin this year and be completed in 2012. The uranium will be shipped to Westinghouse Electric Co.'s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina and held in reserve for utilities contracting for reactor fuel from a plutonium mixed-oxide processing plant being built at the Savannah River Site. The $4.8 billion mixed-oxide facility at Savannah River is scheduled to open in 2016. The program is on time to this point, officials said.

According to an Oct. 3 report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, about 450 Rackable Can Storage Boxes were loaded by Y-12 workers during FY2007 and '08 to prepare for the move into the new Oak Ridge storage facility for weapons-grade uranium. Based on previous information released by NNSA and B&W, the managing contractor, each of those boxes holds a half-dozen cans, and each of those cans holds up to 44 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The defense board memo said B&W plans to begin loading material into the new $549 million storage facility in fiscal year 2010. The loading is to take place in two phases. "The first phase is to de-inventory the Warehouse within about three months after start up

On June 16, 1958, eight workers were hospitalized after they were exposed to high radiation fields in a production facility at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. A batch of highly enriched uranium went critical when it was inadvertently mixed in an unsafe container, zapping everyone in the vicinity with neutrons.