Piketon and Chillicothe — Redevelopment of the former atomic plant near Piketon continues – and the timing is not the best, but it could help with layoffs at Chillicothe’s paper mill.
I attended Tuesday’s open house on the “reindustrialization” effort at the giant Cold War industry in Pike County, officially known as the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. It produced fuel for the nuclear defense program of the United States and commercial nuclear reactors.
For several years most of it has been gradually shut down and decommissioned – and it is in the process of being demolished, buried, and the land disbursed.
The more than 3,700-acre federal reservation with the “A-Plant” in the center has been under the control of the U.S. Department of Energy. According to the plant history, operating at the 1952-1956 uranium gaseous diffusion plant was finally suspended in 1991, and shut down in 2006.
A 1980s uranium gas centrifuge plant continues operating there, though with all-new technology inside the original shell buildings, as I was told by a representative at the open house. Formerly operated along with the gaseous diffusion plant by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), it is now operated by Centrus Energy.
A DUF6 Conversion Plant (Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride) has also been in operation there, to turn uranium enrichment waste in many large cylinders into reusable or safely disposable products.
But aside from these legacy operations there, as land is cleaned up it is being cleared for release for development. So far, all of that is in the southeast part of the developed center of the reservation.
The Southern Ohio Development Initiative, or SODI, is handling the land transfers. The non-profit organization has been designated by the Department of Energy for community reuse of the facility.
Like Chillicothe’s paper mill, the plant is – or was – a giant facility that is largely legendary to those who don’t work there…a facility important for employment and local economics, but otherwise an only partly understood mystery.
I wanted to learn what was new since the previous open house in September. However, no one I spoke with could speak on camera – so they referred me to the official spokesman for SODI…who happens to be the president of Chillicothe Council.
I spoke with Kevin Shoemaker later, and he gave me a good overview of the effort at the former atomic plant near Piketon…and how it might interface with the paper mill. Hear him in his own words in the next story.
