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Editorial: Atomic bomb development worth of national park

Fri., July 31, 2015

Seventy years ago next month, the United States unleashed the most terrible weapon yet used.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August 1945 persuaded Japan to surrender, ending the most cataclysmic war in history.

Fat Man and Little Boy, as the “gadgets” were called, emerged from one of the biggest yet most secret industrial development efforts in U.S. history: the Manhattan Project.

Grim as their mission was, the three installations that produced the bombs have a unique place in history, and the pending formation of a Manhattan Project National Historic Park will assure those sites are preserved. Tuesday, the Department of Energy and National Park Service signed a memorandum that will guide the transformation of the Hanford, Washington; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, facilities into interpretive centers where generations might grasp the giant scope of the scientific effort, its consequences and the effects on the lives of those who worked there, and those ousted to make way.

Until Aug. 28, the public will be able to comment on that agreement, which is available at www.parkplanning.nps.gov.

Really, it’s pretty dry stuff, focused mainly on the respective responsibility of the two federal agencies. Nuclear activity continues at all three sites, so unrestricted access is out of the question. It will be up to the DOE to identify the boundaries, and the Park Service to administer what the public can see.

At Hanford, the centerpiece will be the B Reactor, where the plutonium used in the test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, and in the Nagasaki bomb was produced. The reactor has been open to visitors – 10,000 in 2014 – but designation as a national park will attract many more. The Park Service has much more experience not just managing crowds, but assembling interpretive material.

Given the sensitivity regarding the development and use of atomic weapons, the information will have to go way beyond the usual commentary on area fauna.

But there is an incredible story to tell, one that is not all darkness.

That will take resources, and no money has been appropriated for operation of a park with centers thousands of miles apart. The Park Service got a 2 percent budget increase this year, but the agency is years and millions of dollars behind on maintenance at existing parks, let alone establishing a new one.

Hanford will be a unique addition to the national parks, recreation areas, and historical parks, sites and reserves that already make Washington a premier destination for tourists. Although its opening may be some years ahead – it took three to produce the bombs themselves – the achievements at Hanford, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos deserve recognition.

For good or bad, mankind entered the Atomic Age at the three facilities. Only a small fraction of the thousands of employees at the sites realized or understood what they were undertaking. We think we have the answers today, but the new park should touch on what we don’t know today as much as what we did not know in 1945.