K Cooling Tower Project Reaches Completion
Aiken, S.C. – One of the most visual milestones of cleanup projects underway within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management was the demolition of the K-Reactor Cooling Tower at the Savannah River Site (SRS).
Now, this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project has been completed one month ahead of schedule, with debris from the implosion safely hauled away and deposited in an on-site landfill. With project completion, a great safety achievement was realized.
“We’ve had about 20,000 miles of various kinds of trucks and other vehicular traffic on-site just connected with debris removal with no traffic incidences at all,” said Dewitt Beeler, manager of Savannah River Nuclear Solution’s Solid Waste Facility. “Of course, on a job like this, one of the things that you worry about the most is vehicle and transportation safety.”
To complete the project, more than 800 tons of reinforced steel from the structure were sent to a local scrap metal recycler. This recycling effort also helped to stimulate the local economy beyond the SRS Recovery Act Project.
“With each completed Recovery Act project, we are closer to reducing the legacy environmental cleanup footprint and reaching our goal of 75 percent by the end of 2012,” said Jack Craig, DOE’s Savannah River Operations Office Acting Manager. “SRS continues to prove that the Recovery Act is working to clean-up the site and do it safely.”
The video of the May 2010 controlled implosion has been viewed more than 335,000 times on YouTube.
K Cooling Tower is imploded on May 26, 2010 as part of the SRS Recovery Act Project.
SRS Recovery Act workers use heavy equipment to remove the rubble of K Cooling Tower while sorting more than 800 tons of reinforced steel for recycling.
The remains of the K Cooling Tower resemble an archeological site after SRS Recovery Act workers safely complete the project one month ahead of schedule.
