Hanford’s historic reactor officially a national park

[n2doc]

Source: Tri-Cities Herald

Hanford’s historic B Reactor officially became part of the national park system Tuesday morning as a memorandum of agreement was signed creating the new Manhattan Project Historical National Park.

The new park also will include the few buildings that remain at Hanford from the settlers along the Columbia River who were forced to give up their homes to make way for the secret World War II project to produce plutonium.

B Reactor was built in 11 months, pointed out Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. But it has taken 11 years of effort to make the new national park a reality.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell credited grassroots efforts in communities like the Tri-Cities. The new park also includes sites in Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., that worked toward creating atomic bombs during WWII.


Read more: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article44089200.html

[Mendocino]

1. Great place for a picnic

just throw your burgers on the ground to cook.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. Set up a three-eyed fish stand.

[Mendocino]

9. You should see the

ants there. They ride them at the local rodeo.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. I've seen Them.

[KT2000]

3. my guess - this is the first step

to cordoning off all of Hanford and giving up on the cleanup.

[bahrbearian]

4. Or make the Park Service pay for it.

[KT2000]

5. never thought of that -

but it sounds about right.

[wordpix]

15. good way to bring THAT agency down, repukes would love it

of course, they want to live next door to a (non-radioactive) national park

[wordpix]

17. exactly and read the future: no cleanups, but we'll get national parks/monuments

This will be great for wildlife if they aren't born with holes in their brains and 5 legs where there are supposed to be 4 but hunters, beware.

[MisterP]

6. what about the room full of dirt so plutoniated it kills on contact?

[Demeter]

7. The only National Park that is off-limits to living things

The mind boggles.

[PeoViejo]

8. I have a chunk of Graphite from there.

The Graphite was used as a Moderator, much like Chernobyl. It's high quality material.

[bluedigger]

11. J Frank Parnell! Is that you?

[PeoViejo]

13. lol

No, it's legit. Someone I know, bought a lot at Surplus Sale there.

[hunter]

12. This will be a very interesting park.

It's amazing what we humans can accomplish, good or bad, when we make the effort.

The Apollo program was a similar effort.

Too bad we didn't listen to Jimmy Carter when he suggested applying similar efforts to energy development.

We might all be enjoying a less fossil fuel intensive society these days, with fewer entanglements in the Middle East.

Instead we spend our fortunes on "defense" industry turkeys like aircraft carriers named after corrupt presidents, F-35 fighters, and supercomputers built to spy on everyone.

[maxsolomon]

14. A National Monument might have been more appropos

But it will be cool to get access - they only do very limited tours right now and they fill up fast.

Also, that stretch of the Columbia River, the Hanford Reach, is the last free-flowing segment until you're below Bonneville Dam. Couldn't put a dam there because of the Nuke site I believe.

It's austere country, but it can be beautiful. Apparently there's F tons of wildlife there, too - no humans.

[wordpix]

16. as long as the wind isn't kicking up radioactive dust, I'd hike there

[maxsolomon]

18. is there radioactive dust?

I thought most of the contamination is in waste that's leaking into the ground...