By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

CROSBY TWP. - The most visible vestige of the former Fernald uranium enrichment plant will go out with a bang Saturday morning.

Actually, a series of eight small bangs will collapse the 270-foot west water tower at the 8:30 a.mimplosion.

The tower was completed in 1963 to provide water for fighting fires at the plant's new buildings, after the foundry was expanded in the late 1950s. Painted in red-and-white checkerboard, many neighbors were convinced the secretive plant was making dog food instead of making products used to make atomic bombs.

Bob Kispert, who started working at Fernald in 1954 and retired in 1992 but now works there on a part-time basis, said that design was not an attempt to mislead neighbors.

"The tower was painted red and white according to federal aviation requirements," said Kispert, who now works as the site historian. "It had to be identified for low-flying aircraft. There was very little interaction between the public with the operations at the plant. So it was a natural association for them to make. They see the red-and-white checkerboard, they see the sign out front say 'Feed Materials Plant' and they associated it with livestock feed."

In reality, feed materials related to extracting uranium from raw ore. The uranium was then shipped to "feed" uranium to other nuclear facilities, which would make the bombs.

Eight charges of nitroglycerin will be used to cut through the six metal legs supporting the 350,000-gallon water tank. A total of 15 pounds of explosives will be used at the implosion, which is not open to the public.

Crews have already pre-cut the tower's legs to ensure the tower falls south, similar to the way lumberjacks cut one side of a tree before chopping it down so it falls in a particular direction.

The charges won't blow up like normal explosives. They are designed to blow out on one side only, so the entire force of the explosion will be used to cut through the tower's legs.

"It's almost like taking a knife and cutting through hot butter," said Michael Stevens, manager of demolition projects for Fluor Fernald. "The explosives are wrapped and placed to make a precise cut right through the steel."

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com