As part of UK/CoD's River Cities Project, professors Filson and Rohrbacher led the Atomic Cities Research Group to investigate prosperous futures for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP).
The PGDP was once the sole source of uranium enrichment for the US nuclear weapons and energy programs. Facing immanent decommissioning by the US Department of Energy, the plant requires significant environmental remediation of an underground plume of contaminants. UK/CoD's team took this problem as an asset, and proposed strategies for converting the PGDP into a research facility dedicated to remediation technology.
The research team developed interactive models that enable citizens, policymakers, contractors and scientists to visualize, understand and discuss the site's underground contamination and to test, plan and design future scenarios for the plant.