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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Manhattan Project National Historical Park Memorandum of Agreement Released

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park moved one step closer to reality on Tuesday, July 28 when the National Park Service and the Department of Energy released their Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for jointly managing the park. Now, the National Park Service is seeking input from the public.

The new park will include three sites: Los Alamos, NM, where the atomic bomb was designed and tested; Hanford, WA, where plutonium was manufactured; and Oak Ridge, TN, where uranium was enriched.  The proposed agreement calls for a site manager for each location that would coordinate with the local community and report to a superintendent of all three sites located at the park service’s central office in Denver, Colorado. The agreement also suggests “each site will have similar levels of staffing as park operations grow over the years.”

After visiting the three sites and meeting with local elected officials, Department of Energy and National Park Service officials decided which properties under federal authority should be included in the park. Among the initial properties included are the X-10 Graphite Reactor and Y-12 buildings in Oak Ridge, the B Reactor in Hanford, and the Gun Site and V-Site facilities in Los Alamos. For a complete list, please click here.

The Quonset Hut Assembly Building at Los Alamos, where the first Fat Man bomb was assembled, and the 221-T Process Building (T Plant) at Hanford will not be included in the park because they are needed to support DOE mission work. However, the NPS and the DOE did agree to consider including these buildings in the park “at the earliest feasible time after current mission use is complete.”

The National Park Service will be collecting comments on the draft of the memorandum until August 28, 2015. Once the comments are reviewed, the MOA will be finalized and sent to the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Energy for approval. The agreement must be finalized by December 19, 2015 in accordance with the law. Once signed, the park will officially become part of the National Park System!