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Senate passes Manhattan Project park bill that includes Oak Ridge

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Manhattan Project Park Sites

Note: This story was last updated at 11 a.m. Dec. 14.

House approved bill last week; legislation now headed to President Obama

After years of work, the U.S. Senate has passed a bill to set up a Manhattan Project National Historical Park that includes Oak Ridge, a once-secret city that played a key role in ending World War II. The legislation passed the U.S. House last week, and it now goes to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.

Besides Oak Ridge, the park will include Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hanford, Washington. Those two cities were also part of the Manhattan Project, a top-secret federal program to develop the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. [Read more…]

U.S. House passes Manhattan Project park bill that includes Oak Ridge

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann

Chuck Fleischmann

Note: This story was last updated at 8:30 p.m.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would create a Manhattan Project National Historical Park that would include Oak Ridge, federal officials said Thursday afternoon.

Passage of the bill, pursued for years by historic preservationists, was announced by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and Representative Chuck Fleischmann, both Tennessee Republicans. It was an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which passed in a 300-119 vote.

The bill would designate three sites that were part of the World War II-era Manhattan Project. Besides Oak Ridge, the sites include Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hanford, Washington. The U.S. Senate is expected to pass the 2015 NDAA legislation without amendments before adjourning for the Christmas recess, perhaps as early as next week, according to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that has helped lead efforts to establish the park for more than a decade.

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic bombs. Oak Ridge sites that would be included in the park are the Beta-3 racetracks and Alpha Calutron magnets at Y-12 National Security Complex and the K-25 Building site at the East Tennessee Technology Park. [Read more…]

Guest column: Explosive interest in ‘Manhattan’

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Cynthia C. Kelly

Cynthia C. Kelly

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The WGN America television show “Manhattan” has galvanized the interest of millions of viewers. Shown on Sunday nights, national audiences are riveted by the dramatic tension between rival groups of scientists and the omnipresent security police in Los Alamos in 1943. “Manhattan” follows the scientists as they confront the challenges of making a workable atomic bomb while dealing with an intrusive military force, intense rivalries, and strained marital relations where couples can no longer confide in each other.

The show is a blend of fact and fiction. The primary characters are entirely fictional including the main scientist, Frank Winter; Chinese-American physicist, Sidney Liao; and wunderkind Charlie Isaacs and his most attractive wife, Abby. But “Manhattan” has preserved at least two real persona, J. Robert Oppenheimer as the director of Los Alamos, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr who visits the laboratory to offer his advice.

The central tension is the race to develop two different approaches to a plutonium-based bomb. Winter believes an implosion bomb offers the best option but most of the scientists—including Oppenheimer—are more confident in a gun-type plutonium bomb similar to the design used for the uranium-based bomb. While the enmity between the two groups is exaggerated for television, “Manhattan” does a good job showing the challenges the scientists and engineers faced knowing little about the newly discovered and quite bizarre element plutonium.

In a 1965 interview with journalist Stephane Groueff, J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled: “I think the set of problems connected with implosion was the most difficult, and it required very new experimental techniques. It was not a branch of physics anyone was very familiar with. It was, from a theoretical, an observational, and a practical point of view, quite an adventure. Plutonium was a terrible test from beginning to end and never stayed quiet: it gets hot, it is radioactive, you cannot touch it, you have to coat it, and the coating always peels. It is just a terrible substance.” [Read more…]

Former Manhattan Project headquarters, Groves home damaged in fire

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Luther Brannon Oak Ridge Turnpike House Fire

The historic Luther Brannon House was damaged, but no injuries were reported in this house fire on Oak Ridge Turnpike early Monday morning. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, commander of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II, once lived here, and he had his headquarters in this single-story bungalow, which was built in 1941 and soon acquired by the federal government.

 

Note: This story was last updated at 1 p.m. July 8.

A historic house that once served as a home and headquarters for Gen. Leslie R. Groves during the top-secret Manhattan Project in World War II was heavily damaged in a fire early Monday morning.

No injuries were reported in the house fire, which was reported at 1:36 a.m. Monday.

The one-story stone bungalow at 151 Oak Ridge Turnpike is known as the Luther Brannon House, and it’s just west of Melton Lake Drive and next to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it was the first home in Oak Ridge to be privately owned.

Oak Ridge Fire Department Chief Darryl Kerley said it appears that the Monday morning fire started in the kitchen. Owner Danny Brannon and his daughter were returning from a movie when they found the home on fire. They opened the front door and found the home filled with hot, black smoke, an ORFD press release said. Brannon opened the basement door to find that area clear, but he found fire coming from the kitchen window in the back of the house. The family called 911.

“We have not been able to determine what the cause is,” Kerley said. The Fire Department is waiting for an insurance company, which is sending an investigator and claims adjuster, before continuing its investigation. [Read more…]

Council to discuss Friendship Bell repairs, National Park designation

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Oak Ridge City Council

The Oak Ridge City Council is pictured above during an August 2013 meeting. (File photo)

The Oak Ridge City Council will discuss possible repairs to the structure housing the International Friendship Bell at Alvin K. Bissell Park as well as a potential National Park Service designation during a non-voting work session this evening (Tuesday evening).

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Multipurpose Room at the Central Services Complex on Woodbury Lane.

See the agenda here.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

B&W Y-12 helps libraries, Smokies, Leukemia Society

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B&W Y-12 at Light the Night

A B&W Y-12 team raised more than $20,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society during an Oct. 24 Light the Night walk. (Submitted photos)

B&W Y-12 recently announced it has donated $1,250 to local libraries, raised more than $20,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and volunteered more than 10,000 hours of service at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Here is more information on each of those efforts from Y-12 News Notes:

B&W Y-12 supports local libraries

Libraries in four local towns are benefitting from $1,250 donations from B&W Y-12. [Read more…]

Great Smoky Mountains National Park to reopen tonight

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Cades Cove

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation’s most visited national park, will reopen for five days starting tonight and continuing through Sunday.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the nation’s most visited national park, will reopen for five days starting tonight (Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) and continuing through Sunday, Gov. Bill Haslam said.

The park has been closed because Congress has failed to pass a spending bill in the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. The closure came during the peak fall tourist season.

“The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is America’s most visited national park, and for the Smokies and the people around it, the month of October is the most important time of the year,” Haslam said. “I remain hopeful that an end to the federal government shutdown will come this week.”

The park will reopen at 12 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 16, and stay open until until 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Oct. 20, if the shutdown has not ended by then. [Read more…]

Great Smoky Mountains National Park closed until shutdown ends

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Cades Cove in the Fall

Cades Cove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is pictured above in the fall of 2010.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee is one of 401 national parks closed because of the federal government shutdown that started Tuesday.

The National Park Service announced that it has closed all visitor facilities at the park, including visitor centers, picnic areas, campgrounds, and trails. Roads are closed except for Newfound Gap Road (Highway 441), including the Spur and the Gatlinburg Bypass. The park will remain closed until the government reopens, the NPS said.

The closure comes during the busy fall season, when many people visit the park for the changing of the leaves. [Read more…]

Wilcox never gave up on plan to preserve K-25 history, former DOE manager says

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K-25 Building Aerial View

Now mostly demolished, the former mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building is pictured above. Bill Wilcox, a former technical director at K-25 and the Y-12 National Security Complex, led the fight to preserve K-25’s history. Wilcox died Monday, Sept. 2, and his funeral was Saturday. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)

The fight to preserve the history of the K-25 site in west Oak Ridge was long and arduous. Among the challenges were federal funding battles and deteriorated building conditions.

Other people might have considered the dilapidated K-25 Building, once the world’s largest building under one roof, a “useless hulk,” one friend and colleague said. But historic preservationist Bill Wilcox, who died Monday evening, never gave up on his dream of honoring the site’s history.

Now mostly demolished, the mile-long, U-shaped K-25 Building was erected as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. That was a federal program to build the world’s first atomic bombs during World War II. But the four-story building has been shut down since 1964 and fallen into disrepair, and the U.S. Department of Energy is converting the site into a massive industrial park and demolishing many of the original buildings. [Read more…]

House passes Manhattan Project national park bill that would include Oak Ridge

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X-10 Graphite Reactor

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park would include the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Submitted photo)

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday took an essential step toward establishing a Manhattan Project National Historical Park that could include Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash., a nonprofit organization said.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act was included as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed Friday, the Atomic Heritage Foundation said in an e-mail.

“The new national park will be the first to recognize the top-secret project in World War II that changed the course of world history, science, and society,” the foundation said. [Read more…]

Guest column: Applauds House, Senate support for Manhattan Project park

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Editor’s note: National Parks supporters last week applauded the unanimous approval by a House committee of a bill to set up a Manhattan Project National Historical Park that would include Oak Ridge. Here are statements from two supporters.

Ron Tipton, senior vice president of policy for the National Parks Conservation Association

The National Parks Conservation Association applauds the bipartisan House and Senate support for preserving of our country’s history, through the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act. Today’s announcement provides another positive step forward, as the House Natural Resources Committee unanimously approved the bipartisan bill introduced by Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, Congressman Ben Lujan, and Congressman Chuck Fleischmann.

These national park sites will provide unparalleled opportunities to improve public understanding of the Manhattan Project, the legacy of the United States’ splitting of the atom, and the national and global impacts associated with harnessing the atom. [Read more…]

Mayor to testify to Congress: Manhattan Project park would honor most significant event of last century

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Tom Beehan

Tom Beehan

A new national historical park that could include Oak Ridge would honor the history of the Manhattan Project, the most significant event of the 20th Century, Mayor Tom Beehan will tell a U.S. House subcommittee in testimony this morning.

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret U.S. program to build the world’s first atomic weapons. The three Manhattan Project sites that could be included in the new park are Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, N.M., and Hanford, Wash.

Despite what some detractors might say, the proposed park is not about weapons, Beehan wrote in prepared testimony.

“I believe this historical park is about scientific and engineering accomplishments at a time when our country was defending itself, both during World War II and the Cold War,” he said. [Read more…]