Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
12/5/2014
A new national park comprising of sites tied to the Manhattan Project is moving forward, with language in the final version of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, unveiled this week, calling for such a park to be created within a year. The proposed park, which has been championed for years by outgoing Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) and other lawmakers and community stakeholders, would encompass facilities at Hanford, Oak Ridge and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The House voted late this week to approve the defense bill, and the Senate is expected to follow suit next week.
At Hanford, the defense bill specifically calls for B Reactor to be added to the new national park. The reactor was the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor and was used to produce the plutonium employed in the nuclear weapon used on Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II. Other facilities at Hanford that can be considered for inclusion are T-Plant, as well as the former Hanford High School and White Bluffs Bank Building. At Oak Ridge, among the facilities that can be considered for inclusion in the park are the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the site of the former K-25 uranium enrichment process building and Buildings 9204–3 and 9731 at the Y–12 National Security Complex. For Los Alamos, the bill lists a former cafeteria and a former dormitory among the portions of the site that can be considered for inclusion.
Members of the Energy Communities Alliance, which represents communities near Department of Energy sites, heralded the bill this week. “We are thrilled to see this step toward making the new National Park a reality. There’s no question that the story of the Manhattan Project and the contributions of the men and women who supported it are of high interest to the American public. This creates a real opportunity for our communities to share our collective history while realizing the benefits of the heritage tourism industry a National Park is likely to create,” ECA Vice-Chair and Mayor of Kennewick, Wash., Steve Young said in a statement.
