Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Energy Secretary Moniz signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Tuesday establishing the park, which will have locations in Oak Ridge; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington.
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Alexander recalled that thousands of scientists and other officials moved into the Oak Ridge area to work on the secret project to develop the atomic bomb.
Nuclear work continues at all three sites commemorated in the new park, a fact Moniz cited as an example of the project’s enduring importance in war and peace.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Los Alamos County Council Chair Kristin Henderson, former Councilor Fran Berting and Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott joined U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich at this morning’s signing ceremony in Washington, D.C.to officially establish the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
“It’s a great way of telling one of the most significant historical events that happened in our last generation”, Oak Ridge City Councilman Chuck Hope said.
Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, an anti-nuclear watchdog group, called the new park “pure propaganda for Los Alamos National Laboratory and its enduring mission of creating weapons of global destruction”.
More than 10,000 people visited the reactor in 2014, but the park designation will bring many more, officials said. But the bombs had consequences, as her mother-in-law, a nurse who served during WWII, saw when she was sent into Nagasakiand Hiroshima after the bombings, she said.
The National Park Service is still working on interpretations that will one day be a part of the three-state park.
“For so many years, those stories weren’t told”, he said. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz signed the agreement. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. The Alexander Guest House, a historic two-story hotel that has been converted into an assisted living center, is also eligible for inclusion in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
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“That’s why this new National Historical Park is so important”, she said. “Not only will it preserve the history of the region and reflect on the contributions of this community, but it will also shine a spotlight on the federal government’s ongoing moral and legal obligation to continue the cleanup”. That will start with a foundation document created with public involvement, Jarvis said.
