Officials want to turn World War II nuclear-weapon development sites into national parks

Washington Post ^ | 28 July 2012 | Darryl Fears

[moonshot925]

Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory was such a well-kept secret during World War II that most Americans still don’t know that it sits off one of busiest highways in the South.

Every year, streams of vacationers whiz by the complex that enriched uranium for America’s first atomic bomb project. It’s on the way to Great Smoky Mountains National Park — the most-visited U.S. national park. And every year, right about this time, the city of Oak Ridge, just west of Knoxville on Interstate 40, holds a Secret City Festival, crying out to potential tourists.

“They don’t even know we’re here,” said Katy Brown, president of the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

But a spotlight might shine soon on the Oak Ridge lab and two other largely forgotten Manhattan Project sites as the nation marks the 70th anniversary of the general order that established the world-shaking atomic research and development program.

The Obama administration is supporting bipartisan legislation in Congress that would designate sites in Oak Ridge; Hanford, Wash.; and Los Alamos, N.M., as national parks.

The designations would make possible wider exposure of the aging laboratories, which altered history — and, some say, darkened it.

The Hanford site produced plutonium. The Oak Ridge site enriched uranium. And workers in Los Alamos used those materials to assemble the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs dropped on Japan, forcing the Japanese surrender and ending the war. About 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki perished.

[Harold Shea]

My aunt and uncle have lived in Oak Ridge for 50 yrs.We would

travel up the half finished i40 to see them.There were still many

signs from the war days,fencing and guard posts,those are still there

entering OR.

The Atomic Energy Museaum,renamed something else has a great

history section of the war years...not to be missed

[HangnJudge]

Where else can you stick yer hand on a Van De Graff Accelerator!

Or see the first operating nuclear reactor in the world up close and personal!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

My 92 year old uncle was a freshly minted BS Mechanical Engineering and the Army sent him to Oak Ridge to run a separation plant shift. He had to train local farm boys on how to run the equipment. After the war, he spent time in Los Alamos working on plutonium weapons. He eventually got his MS in ME, an MD in Dentistry and became an orthodontist.

[Harold Shea]

Oh and I’ll add Clinton sucks...half joking

Oak Ridge saying for a long time.

Not the bent one

[DUMBGRUNT]

Best to watch out for the beryllium dust!

[newzjunkey]

which altered history — and, some say, darkened it.

Because no other country was pursuing nuclear weapons like say, maybe, Nazi Germany, right?

"Some say" are weasel words. It's not good journalistic practice.

[HangThemHigh]

"They don’t even know we’re here,"

Suits me just fine. I live 4 miles from Oak Ridge.