Radioactive Sludge Being Removed from Sewage Facility

Two years after radioactive sludge was discovered, the Department of Energy is still removing it from the city of Oak Ridge’s sewage treatment facility.

The pollution was caused by technetium-99 that entered through pipelines in the sewer system from the demolition project at the federal government’s K-25 uranium-enrichment plant on the Clinch River, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. The plant was built in 1943 as part of the U.S. government’s Manhattan Project, and at that time was the largest building in the world; it is now the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest demolition project.

Since 2014, containment and cleanup of the treatment facility has been in progress, and about 75,000 gallons of radioactive sludge has been removed from and transferred to a Perma-Fix Environmental treatment facility in Richland, Wash.

The Department of Energy contractor in charge of the cleanup recently told the Knoxville News Sentinel that as removal continues, they will approach the upcoming demolition work at the adjacent K-27 facility with the lessons learned from the K-25 project, taking steps to ensure the radioactive contaminants do not once more reach the town’s sewage treatment plant. — Charlotte Wray