OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - It was a sunny autumn day almost too nice for destruction, but that was the scene Wednesday as heavy machinery gouged holes in the K-31 building and a crowd of onlookers gathered for the latest milestone in the post-Cold War cleanup in Oak Ridge.
K-31 is the fourth of five uranium-enrichment dinosaurs to be demolished at the sprawling government site that's gradually being converted to an industrial park.
At one time, decades ago, Oak Ridge boasted the world's largest gaseous diffusion complex for processing uranium. The facilities separated the isotopes of uranium in a gaseous form and concentrated the fissionable U-235 isotope for use in nuclear weapons and to fuel nuclear reactors in the United States and its allies abroad.