Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

uildings, and craft shops. Then the pace quickened. In 1979, a new High Bay Lab (CF-686) and office
buildings for Morrison-Knudsen and EG&G were constructed. The old hot laundry facility was
remodeled to meet DOE standards for energy efficiency.
Similar changes occurred in the 1980s. New office buildings were needed to deal with health and
safety issues: office buildings (CF-612 and -614), and Hazardous Waste Storage Facility Field Offices
(CF-655). New multicraft shops replaced several outdated facilities.
By 1990 several CFA buildings were forty years old or more. The DOE site manager decided to
dismantle many old structures and replace them with new ones. The quality of construction and the
heavy-duty materials in the older structures created challenges for dismantlement teams. Those composed
of reinforced concrete, especially the structures at the NPG Proof Area, were constructed with rebar that
was typically doubled and crisscrossed. Asbestos insulation covered many old pipes and walls. Buried
fuel tanks, contaminated water pipes, drainage pumps, and entire buildings required special handling. In
the Proof Area, old naval ordnance had to be found and recovered.
Between 1990 and 1995, two new buildings appeared at the CFA: the Core Storage Library (CF-663),
in which geological core samples were stored by the United States Geological Survey; and a new office
complex called Office #3 (CF-615).
Beginning in 1995, after Lockheed Technologies became the consolidated contractor for the INL,
construction continued. Several old facilities were replaced and new ones constructed in connection with
waste processing activities. Most were prefabricated metal structures. A new Transportation Complex
(CF-696), Medical Dispensary (CF-1612), Fire Station, pumphouse and concrete-slab training facility
(CF-1611, -1603, -1606), and more offices (CF-1608 through -1610) were completed. New chlorine
injection facilities (CF-1601) and waste water labs (CF-1605) reflected INL's emphasis on environmental
remediation. A Health Physics Instrument Laboratory (CF-1618) was completed in 2002. 273
Significance of CFA. As a centralized service center for contractors elsewhere at INL, the CFA
typically was not the scene of scientific discovery or historic breakthroughs in nuclear knowledge. Its
labs, shops, transportation terminals, personnel services, storage warehouses, utility centers, and
administrative offices all supported experiments elsewhere. As scientific inquiry shifted from nuclear
reactor concepts and safety to waste remediation, CFA facilities shifted the burden of their support
accordingly. Compelling demands by DOE to operate with energy efficiency and without excessive
maintenance costs dictated that obsolete buildings be replaced.
Aside from changing missions, the extant buildings at CFA also reflect national trends in industrial
vernacular architecture. When DOE mandated that all of its facilities reduce their energy consumption
after the oil shortages of the early 1970s, vendors had to supply buildings that would meet new energy
efficiency standards at costs low enough to win bids. Invariably this meant that pumice-block,
wood-frame, and brick-veneered buildings became a thing of the past. Prefabricated all-metal buildings
tended to meet construction and energy conservation standards at lower costs.
Office buildings CF-612 and CF-614, built in the 1980s, are among the few buildings on the entire
INL site to meld a defined architectural style (International and Contemporary) with the functional nature
of industrial structures.
The blending of old NPG military structures in a setting with later nuclear-era buildings offers a rare
opportunity to examine a landscape shaped by the federal government and its civilian contractors. The
CFA exhibits the adaptation and reuse of military buildings and residences. The contrast between the
Navy's approach to housing its employees on-site—providing them with permanent housing, landscaping,
and trees—contrasts sharply with the AEC's determination not to house its employees on- or off-site and
273. Hollie Gilbert, “Building/Structure” Data Base, 2003 version.
265