Three new national parks are being proposed and might just inch their way through Congress in the near future. The three projected parks would be sites of former nuclear testing: Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, according to the Washington Post.
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.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation called the creation and use of the atomic bomb “the single most significant event of the 20th century’’ in advocating the preservation of buildings once scheduled for demolition.
If the purpose of national parks is to preserve our resources and our history, then these sites should be added to the list of national parks. Nuclear use is not without its darker side, however. I hope that all sides of the issue will be told. I fear that the parks will become highly controversial and that once again extremes will rule the day while the rest of us would be very happy for the added park lands.
It is amazing that over 100,000 people were employed in one way or other with the Manhattan project and yet its top secret status was pretty well maintained. Such secrecy would never happen today with the 24/7 cable shows, FOIA, and the Internet. Good, some might say. However, history proves time and time again how vital the element of surprise was when it came to winning WWII. Those who lived back in the day always repeat how desperate times were. My mother used the expression ‘nip and tuck’ to describe how dire the situation was.
War to civilians is so remote now, it is difficult to imagine. Korea and Vietnam also didn’t impact our daily lives for those of us who were around in those days. Perhaps that’s our problem. War is too clean and too remote for us to grasp its horror.
3 National Parks with a nuclear theme might bring us to better terms with the giant we created and yes, unleashed on our enemies. Those old enemies soon embraced this power giant only to grow careless again and barely escape another catastrophe after the 2011 earthquake that severely damaged the structure of at least one of Japan’s nuclear power plants. Nuclear energy can only be our friend if we respect that it can also turn into our instant Voldemort.
The only reason it struck me as a little odd was “would I visit a site that had been used as a nuclear test site”
As a historical perpspective, the very idea that it WOULD be bring up such debate about the good and bad of nuclear arms is the best reason TO preseve these sites as Parks. In some ways we seem like little children trying to control a dangerous device we weren’t meant to play with. Look at the trauma Japan is STILL experiencing.
I think the anti nuclear people have become fewer and further between. Doesn’t it seem like the safety risks of nuclear have gotten much less attention in recent years…say the past 20 years?
I don’t know if the hazards are less or the politics have made us less willing to talk about them.
I am not sure I would totally trust the place to be cleaned up. I want to believe……
I am sort of that era though…to fear everything nuclear.
Japan is still experiencing trauma because they tried to short cut and save money. Of course, that doesn’t help the Japanese people who once again have been victimized by their government and industrial complex.
I soo want to agree with both of you, but after years of watching this I have also concluded that the vistas and the histories are rarely the discriminating factors and remember there is a difference between the mission of the Forrest Service and the NPS. Land that goes to the NPS builds out their staffing and locks up resources with a direct impact on the market value of – say – tin, gold, silver, copper, gold or coal. NPS by its own budget admissions has more land than it can handle. Combined with the hikers, anti-ATV and anti-hunting folks, its amazing how developers and equestrians have been able to surround the national parks and build trails. I don’t trust the NPS to teach or educate anybody about the nuclear age any more than they do Civil War history.
I agree that these sites need to be preserved. I just wish the Feds would transfer the land to the states and let the States manage the land and facilities with federal subsidies. My guess is that if anyone seriously pressed this option the whole idea would just go away.
I don’t get into national forests and BLM stuff. I only care about the National Parks. Yes, they, like everything else, have been controversial. Immediately I thought of the wolf projects and how the ranchers have battled that initiative. I can see both sides which probably isn’t a good thing.
The NPS have been underfunded for over a decade. I see the parks as a national resource and believe they should be funded every bit as much as some of the other things we pour money into. I don’t trust the states one iota.
I won’t loose sleep if the nuclear parks don’t pan out. It seems like a good idea IF we can make certain the areas are clean of stuff that might be harmful.
The park service can’t take care of what it has now. Pick One – probably Oak Ridge and maintain that. Why on earth are we considering making Los Alamos into a park? Isn’t it a national lab? The uses seem incongruent.
blue: nobody in their right mind would take a land transfer from the Feds with the promise of a continuing subsidy…..
I might be worried about what they buried there. Back in those days, There wasn’t much thought to long range future and land preservation.
Los Alamos is in a pretty spectacular part of the country if you like mesas and desert land.
The National Parks have had their budget chopped entirely too many times, especially under the Bush Administration. They have millions of visitors a year.
@ AndyH
Re; transfer to state v federal management. Yep; My guess is that if anyone seriously pressed this option the whole idea would just go away.
I earned a degree in Environmental Science back in the day and, after graduation, did groundwater modeling (using computers) for about 6 years. We did a ton of work on all those sites…it’s been about 20 years since then and we’ve spent billions on cleanups but I’m with moon: I’d be at least somewhat concerned about what remains….
@Andy
At least there would be some limits on where you had to look. Someone is always coming across some dump site no one knew was there. One of the worst areas for that in the United States is right outside Dover, NJ. Scarey!!!!!
I am always leery of school sites.