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During
the Cold War, the Fernald site produced high-purity uranium metal
products for the nation’s weapons production program.
In 1951, the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the Department of
Energy (DOE), awarded a $113 million contract to the George
A. Fuller Company of New York to construct a uranium processing
plant on a 1,050-acre parcel of land 18 miles from Cincinnati,
Ohio. The AEC also contracted the Catalytic Construction
Company as the architect/engineer design firm for the new site.
Named the
Feed Material Production Center (Fernald site), its primary
mission was to produce high-purity uranium metal products in the
form of ingots, derbies, billets and fuel cores for other sites
within the nuclear weapons complex. Some sites used the
products as fuel for nuclear reactors to produce plutonium. The Fernald site was a uranium processing
facility;
it did not contain a nuclear reactor, nor did it produce or handle
explosive devices, nuclear weapons, or highly radioactive
material.
To manage
and operate the new site, the AEC awarded a prime contract to National Lead of Ohio
(NLO), a wholly owned subsidiary of National Lead Company. NLO operated the plant
from 1951 until 1986, when DOE awarded the management contract
to Westinghouse Material Company of Ohio, a subsidiary of
Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Just five
months after the May 1951 groundbreaking for the new plant, NLO
initiated site operations on a plant-by-plant
basis. As construction of each
production plant was completed, NLO tested the processes and
started operations. The Pilot Plant was the first production
plant to operate in October 1951; all plants were fully
operational by 1954. By the time construction was complete,
19 acres of the 136-acre production area were under roof, four
miles of railroad tracks were installed and 24 acres of paved
roads and storage areas were constructed, equivalent to a 20-mile
stretch of highway.
During the
Cold War era, security was a priority at the Fernald site. A “Q”
security clearance was a condition of employment. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation conducted a background check on everyone
the company hired, which required months to complete. Often,
the FBI returned to potential employees’ hometowns to interview
friends, families, former business associates and others to verify
the character and identity of the individual. Employees who
were hired before they received a clearance worked in special
areas on site, but were not permitted to walk around without an
escort.
As with all
industries, product demand impacted the site’s employment
levels. During the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, metal
production peaked at nearly 12,000 tons annually. Employment reached
its highest point in 1956 with 2,879 employees. Many of the
production plants were expanded in the mid-1950s as part of a
site-wide facility expansion effort. Throughout the 1970s,
production demand was low, and employment dipped to less than
1,000 employees. In 1975 the site’s production rate fell
to approximately 900 tons of metal. Production picked up
again in the 1980s, but by 1989, demand for the uranium feed
material was low due to the cessation of the Cold War. This decrease in demand coupled with an
increase in environmental compliance and waste management issues
led site management to shut down plant operations. In 1991,
Congress approved the final closure of site production operations
and authorized its new environmental remediation
mission. To
reflect this new mission, DOE changed the site’s name to the
Fernald Environmental Management Project.
During its
38 years of operations, the Fernald site played a critical role in
the nuclear weapons complex, delivering nearly 170,000 metric tons
uranium (MTU) metal products and 35,000 MTU of intermediate
compounds, such as
uranium trioxide and uranium tetrafluoride. The site
received numerous awards for outstanding performance in industrial
and motor vehicle safety, and was recognized within the industry
for productivity improvements and innovations that saved money,
resources and increased production throughputs and performance
yields.
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