Editing Y-12 National Security Complex (section)

==History==
[[File:Y12 Calutron Operators.jpg|thumb|left|Employees of the [[Manhattan Project]] operating [[calutron]] control panels at Y-12, in a US government photo by [[Ed Westcott]].]]
Y-12 is the [[World War II]] code name for the [[electromagnet]]ic [[isotope separation]] plant producing [[enriched uranium]] at the [[Clinton Engineer Works]] in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as part of the [[Manhattan Project]]. Construction began in February 1943 under the management of [[Stone & Webster]]. Because of a wartime shortage of [[copper]], the massive electromagnetic coils were made with 14,700 tons of coinage [[silver]] from U.S. government vaults at West Point.<ref>{{cite book| author = Nichols, Kenneth D. | title = The Road to Trinity| page = 42 | year =1987| isbn = 0-688-06910-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| access-date = 2017-01-06| url = http://www.tnengineering.net/AICHE/eastman-oakridge-young.htm| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110318164756/http://www.tnengineering.net/AICHE/eastman-oakridge-young.htm| url-status = dead| archive-date = 2011-03-18| title = Eastman at Oak Ridge - Dr. Howard Young}}</ref> Colonel [[Kenneth D. Nichols]] met with the Under Secretary of the Treasury, [[Daniel W. Bell]], and requested between five and ten thousand tons of silver. Bell's stunned reply was, "Colonel, in the Treasury we do not speak of tons of silver; our unit is the [[troy ounce]]." Thus the Manhattan Engineer District requested and was loaned 395&nbsp;million troy ounces of silver (13,540&nbsp;[[short ton]]s, 12,300&nbsp;[[tonne]]s) from the West Point Depository for the duration of the Manhattan Project. Special guards and accountants were assigned to the silver, and their responsible caretaking meant that at the end of the war, less than 0.036% (14,220&nbsp;[[troy ounce|oz&nbsp;t]]) out of more than $300&nbsp;million worth of silver was lost to the process, with the remainder returned to the Treasury.<ref>{{cite web | access-date = 2009-12-09 | url = https://www.y12.doe.gov/sites/default/files/history/pdf/articles/07-10-11.pdf | title = 14,700 tons of silver at Y-12 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141027161629/https://www.y12.doe.gov/sites/default/files/history/pdf/articles/07-10-11.pdf | archive-date = 2014-10-27 | url-status = dead}}</ref>

The Y-12 facility began operating in November 1943, separating [[uranium-235]] from [[natural uranium]], which is 99.3% [[uranium-238]], by using [[calutron]]s to perform electromagnetic isotope separation. Y-12 separated the uranium-235 for [[Little Boy]], the [[nuclear weapon]] that was [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|dropped on Hiroshima, Japan]] on August 6, 1945. [[K-25]], another facility in Oak Ridge, produced enriched uranium using [[gaseous diffusion]]. However, K-25 did not begin operating until March 1945 and fed slightly enriched uranium to Y-12's Beta Calutrons as the push to obtain enough uranium-235 for Little Boy came in the early summer of 1945. The [[S-50 (Manhattan Project)|S-50]] Thermal Diffusion Plant at the K-25 site also provided feed material for Y-12's Beta Calutrons.

[[Tennessee Eastman]] was hired by the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Army Corps of Engineers]] to manage Y-12 during the Manhattan Project. The company transferred scientists from [[Kingsport, Tennessee]], to Y-12 and operated the plant from 1943 to May 1947.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |author=Martha Avaleen Egan |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/tennessee-eastman-companyeastman-chemical-company/ |title=Tennessee Eastman Company/Eastman Chemical Company |encyclopedia=Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture |year=2009 |access-date=February 14, 2013}}</ref> The Y-12 electromagnetic plant units were initially operated by scientists from [[University of California, Berkeley|UC Berkeley]] to remove bugs and achieve a reasonable operating rate. They were then turned over to trained Tennessee Eastman operators who had only a high school education. Nichols compared unit production data and pointed out to physicist [[Ernest Lawrence]] that the young "hillbilly" girl operators were outproducing his doctorate-holding scientists. They agreed to a production race and Lawrence lost, a morale boost for the Tennessee Eastman workers and supervisors. The girls were "trained like soldiers not to reason why", while "the scientists could not refrain from time-consuming investigation of the cause of even minor fluctuations of the dials".<ref>Nichols, Kenneth D. ''Ibid'', page 131</ref> The young women that worked in this capacity came to be known as "[[Calutron Girls]]."<ref name="Museum">{{cite web |title=A Book Review of ''The Girls of Atomic City'' by Denise Kiernan |date=March 25, 2020 |publisher=National World War II Museum |url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/book-review-girls-atomic-city-denise-kiernan |access-date=2021-09-09 |website=nationalww2museum.org}}</ref>

The [[Union Carbide]] corporation succeeded Tennessee Eastman as the operating contractor in 1947, remaining until 1984 when Union Carbide relinquished the contract for operating DOE's Oak Ridge facilities, and the [[Martin Marietta]] corporation (later [[Lockheed Martin]]) won the contract to take over the operation. BWXT Y-12 (name later changed to B&W Y-12) succeeded Lockheed Martin as the Y-12 operator in November 2000.<ref>"[http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/pdf/2002/011002.pdf Y-12 Receives 'Good' Award Fee Rating from DOE] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208161017/http://www.y12.doe.gov/news/pdf/2002/011002.pdf |date=2007-02-08}}," ''BWX Times'', Vol. 2, No. 6 (January 10, 2002).  Retrieved: February 14, 2013.</ref>

===1958 criticality incident===
At 11 p.m. on June 16, 1958, a [[criticality accident]] occurred in the C-1 Wing of Building 9212 at the facility, then operating under the management of Union Carbide. In the incident, a solution of highly enriched uranium was mistakenly diverted into a steel drum, causing a [[Nuclear fission|fission reaction]] of 15–20 minutes duration. Eight workers were hospitalized for moderate to severe [[radiation sickness]] or exposure, but all eventually returned to work. 

In June 1960, the eight workers (Bill Wilburn, O. C. Collins, Travis Rogers, R. D. Jones, Howard Wagner, T. W. Stinnett, Paul McCurry, and Bill Clark) filed suit against the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]]. The suit was settled out-of-court. Wilburn, who had received the highest radiation dose, was awarded $18,000 (approximately $195,000 in 2024). Clark received $9,000 (worth approximately $97,200 in 2024).<ref name="Munger">{{Cite web|first=Frank|last=Munger|url=http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2014/06/14/nuclear-survivor-bill-clark-recalls-1958-criticality-accident-life-since/|title=Nuclear survivor: Bill Clark recalls 1958 criticality accident and his up-and-down life since then|date=2014-06-14|website=Atomic City Underground|access-date=April 1, 2015|archive-date=February 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208072316/http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2014/06/14/nuclear-survivor-bill-clark-recalls-1958-criticality-accident-life-since/|url-status=dead}} also published in ''[[Knoxville News Sentinel]]'' and ''[[Stars and Stripes (newspaper)|Stars and Stripes]]''.</ref> Under the [[Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program]], the eight later received additional compensation from the government; Clark collected multiple payments totaling about $250,000. Most, if not all, of the eight victims were diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lives.<ref name="Y-12 National Security Complex 2023 c102">{{cite web | title=Remembering the 1958 Nuclear Criticality Accident | website=Y-12 National Security Complex | date=2023-06-15 | url=https://www.y12.doe.gov/news/blog/remembering-1958-nuclear-criticality-accident | access-date=2024-03-25}}</ref> {{As of|2023}}, Clark is the only surviving member of the eight.<ref name="Munger"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.y12.doe.gov/news/blog/remembering-1958-nuclear-criticality-accident|title=Remembering the 1958 Nuclear Criticality Accident &#124; Y-12 National Security Complex|website=www.y12.doe.gov|date=2023-07-15}}</ref>

=== 1999 explosion ===

A chemical explosion injured several workers at the Y-12 facility on December 8, 1999, when [[NaK]] was cleaned up after an accidental spill, inappropriately treated with mineral oil, and inadvertently ignited when the surface coating of [[potassium superoxide]] was scratched by a metal tool.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ncsp.tamu.edu/reports/DOE/oversight/9912y12.pdf |title=Type A Accident Investigation of the December 8, 1999, Multiple Injury Accident Resulting from the Sodium-Potassium Explosion in Building 9201-5 at the Y-12 Plant |publisher=U.S. Department of Energy |date=February 2000}}</ref>

=== 2023 fire ===
At 9 a.m. on February 22, 2023, a fire broke out in a uranium processing area of Building 9212.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Fire contained at Tennessee uranium processing facility, nuclear safety officials say |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/22/fire-tennessee-uranium-nuclear-facility/11325882002/ |access-date=2023-02-22 |website=USA Today |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Blitzer |first=Ronn |date=2023-02-22 |title=Emergency services respond to uranium fire at National Nuclear Security Administration complex in Tennessee |url=https://www.foxnews.com/us/emergency-services-respond-uranium-fire-national-nuclear-security-administration-complex-tennessee |access-date=2023-02-22 |website=Fox News |language=en-US}}</ref> In a statement from the National Nuclear Security Administration, the fire was said to be contained later the same day.<ref name=":1" />