WW II-Era Bomb Plant Gets $4-Billion Face Lift
Workers began dismantling a rusty guard tower at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapon plant, a symbolic first step in modernizing the 59-year-old facility involved in building weapons ranging from the Hiroshima bomb to the MX missile.
The $4-billion modernization of the Y-12 plant includes rebuilding facilities that date to 1943 and constructing a giant warehouse to store stockpiles of weapon-grade uranium. Most of the uranium is stored in at least five locations around the complex owned by the Energy Department.
The warehouse will be as big as four football fields, and will hold as many as 32,000 cans and drums of bomb-grade material.
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