The Cincinnati Enquirer

Workers demolish the Pilot Plant at the Fernald site in Crosby Township on Thursday. The building, built in 1951, was the first of 10 processing plants built at the uranium production facility and the last of the original buildings to be destroyed. Fernald processed and purified uranium metal used in reactors to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. The Associated Press/DAVID KOHL

CROSBY TWP. - The last of 10 former uranium processing buildings that produced 100 million pounds of high-purity uranium at Fernald over four decades was demolished Thursday.

Called the Pilot Plant, the building was vital to the Cold War-era foundry because the processes and equipment used in all chemical and metallurgical production plants at Fernald were first tested there.

The Pilot Plant also was the first of the 10 buildings in the production area of Fernald constructed in October 1951.

Fernald, in northwest Hamilton County, was a vital part of the county's nuclear arms race.

Uranium was extracted from raw ore for use in the cnuclear weapons program between 1951 and 1989.

Since ceasing operations, the federal government has spent nearly $4 billion in trying to clean up radiological contamination of soil, water and construction materials at the plant.

The decade-old cleanup is scheduled for completion in June 2006.