В Падьюхе утвердили план реиндустриализации атомного объекта с инвестициями на 104 млрд долларов

PADUCAH — The Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce hosted discussion about the cleanup status and reindustrialization of the Department of Energy Paducah site on Thursday at a Power in Partnership Breakfast. The event featured remarks from Maegan Mansfield, chief growth officer for BFW engineering and Marcum Engineering; Myrna Redfield, president/CEO of Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership; Bruce Wilcox, president of Greater Paducah Economic Development; and Chamber President/CEO Sandra Wilson. Redfield gave a brief history of cleanup efforts at the site, which began in 1988. “Something important to note is that we have, to date, extracted over 6 billion gallons of groundwater, and that we have removed about 9,000 gallons of TCE from the groundwater, which is a degreaser,” Redfield said. “A lot of progress has occurred. In 2014, when the site came back to the Department of Energy, we started doing a lot of deactivation and demolition, and since then, there's about 180 facilities that have been demolished. We also had 8.5 million pounds of R114 [refrigerant] in our inventory, and today more than 6 million of that has been disposed of, and we continue to do that.” Redfield said Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership completed its first deactivation of a 25-acre, 80-foot-tall process building on the site last year, and is in the process of deactivating a second. She said the group is performing field investigations, collecting and analyzing data and evaluating cleanup options for the site, working to create a proposed plan for the future. Four Rivers will work with Kentucky’s Environmental Protection Agency and seek community input on that plan. “The proposed plans should be coming out early next year for the community to give us input, and then we are projecting to have our records of decisions no later than 2029, but the team is ahead of schedule, so we may have those earlier,” Redfield said. “All the effort that we're doing there, what we're doing is ensuring that we continue to finish the cleanup so that more land at the site can be ready for industrialization.” Sandra Wilson discussed advocacy for reindustrialization of the DOE Paducah site on behalf of the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce. “Back in 2013, when it was announced that the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant would cease operations, our community really had to think about what would come next for the site, and we knew that reindustrialization was needed,” Wilson said. “The chamber became very involved with the conversation, working closely with Greater Paducah Economic Development and the Department of Energy to understand the future of the site and what we could learn from other communities. We made advocacy for the site one of our federal priorities. Over the years, the advocacy work that we've done and the strong relationship that we have built with the Department of Energy has produced significant results, including the longer-term contracts, increased funding at the site for the cleanup, and now major investments at the site.” Wilson also discussed the chamber’s advocacy for a new administration building at the site, resulting in Sen. Mitch McConnell's announcement this year that $41 million in federal funding will go toward its construction. According to the Paducah Chamber of Commerce's 2025 Federal Priorities, the current facility was constructed in the 1950s and is supplemented by 24 temporary trailers, requiring approximately $2.8 million annually in surveillance and upkeep. She said in a small group meeting in February, DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh advised the chamber to develop a “master plan” for reindustrialization of the site. “In March, we were awarded an amendment to our DOE grant with additional funding to develop the master plan for the site over the next 18 months,” Wilson said. “So that's really the next chapter. We have gone from asking what happens when the plant closes to asking a much bigger question: What can this site become?” Mansfield, who serves as project lead for the master plan study and the previous 2023 chamber study funded by a $2 million DOE grant, discussed some of the technical aspects of the plan. “Stakeholders consistently told us that there was a need for a long-term vision connecting DOE missions, industrial recruitment, infrastructure investments, and community priorities,” Mansfield said. “That's why the plan focuses on transportation, utilities, land use coordination and community integration.” She said the first objective is transportation and site access, with the goal being a “transportation network that enhances accessibility, improves efficiency and supports long-term industrial growth across the site and the region.” Another focus is evaluating future demand for utilities and creating solutions. "It is not simply attracting the next company; it's creating the transportation, utilities, site, workforce, and partnerships needed to support investment for generations,” Mansfield said. “The master plan provides the roadmap to get there by aligning cleanup, infrastructure, and economic development into a single vision. If we're successful, the Paducah site will be known not only for its history, but for helping drive the next generation of innovation and economic opportunity in western Kentucky.” Bruce Wilcox discussed the three major projects at the DOE Paducah site — uranium enrichment facilities Global Laser Enrichment and General Matter, and AI data center and energy generation project the Paducah American Energy Hub — and their projected economic impact. He also added that GPED is close to announcing another large-scale investment within the next 60 days. “To put all of this capital investment into perspective: today, the assessed value of real and personal property in McCracken County is about $7 billion,” Wilcox said. “These three projects collectively represent about $104 billion — 15 times the investment in Paducah-McCracken County today. It is truly a transformational event that's happening out at the DOE site.”