To the UCOR Workforce:
I want to take a moment to recognize an extraordinary milestone: our crews have officially completed surface site restoration at the Alpha-2 footprint.
Completing the restoration of this 325,000-square-foot footprint is far more than a checklist item—it is the culmination of a safe, disciplined six-year journey that fundamentally transforms the landscape of Y-12. What our team accomplished represents the largest demolition to date at the site and the very first demolition of a uranium enrichment facility at Y-12.
The sheer scale of the work our team achieved is staggering, including:
- Four years of rigorous preparation and characterization, collecting and analyzing over 7,000 samples to ensure safe execution.
- Safely managing over 83 million pounds of debris across nearly 3,500 truckloads, in addition to safely packaging and shipping more than 625,000 pounds of lead in 93 B-12 boxes.
- Grading the footprint, installing a non-permeable protective barrier, spreading aggregate across the 2.5-acre parcel, and establishing critical groundwater monitoring infrastructure to protect our environment for generations to come.
Every load of debris hauled, every monitoring well drilled, and every sample taken was executed with an unyielding commitment to safety and operational excellence. Because of your dedication, we are one major step closer to completing subsurface remediation and transferring this land back to the National Nuclear Security Administration to support national security missions.
This project delivered invaluable experience and lessons learned. The work completed at Alpha-2 directly paves the way for our upcoming demolition of the 210,000-square-foot Beta-1 facility early next year.
I would like to thank the teams involved for their vigilance and continued commitment to our shared cleanup mission. Because all of us in some way support the cleanup work being performed every day, this is a shared achievement that we can all be proud of. You have proven once again that there is no challenge our workforce cannot safely overcome.
Best Regards,
Jim Blankenhorn
UCOR President and Program Manager
