Oak Ridge Today

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…]

Award-winning author of ‘Bomb’ to visit Oak Ridge, stop at AMSE

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Bomb

By Scot Smith

The American Museum of Science and Energy will host award-winning author Steve Sheinkin on Tuesday, October 7. Among other books, Sheinkin has written “Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.”

Sheinkin’s presentation at AMSE is scheduled for 6 p.m. October 7. His other public presentation will be for the University of Tennessee’s Center for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. That lecture will take place on Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m. in the Hodges Library Auditorium on the UT campus, a press release said. Books will be available for purchase and signing at both events.

During his stay in East Tennessee, Sheinkin will also present programs for students at Oak Ridge School and Jefferson and Robertsville Middle Schools, the Webb School, and the Episcopal School of Knoxville. [Read more…]

Today is Oak Ridge’s 72nd birthday

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Y-12 Calutron Operators

Women enriching uranium in calutrons at Y-12 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II. (Photo by Ed Westcott)

 

It’s Oak Ridge’s birthday today, September 19.

Oak Ridge was picked for the top-secret Manhattan Project on September 19, 1942. That was the day 72 years ago when General Leslie Groves approved the acquisition of 59,000 acres of land along the Clinch River for what soon became the Manhattan Project, a federal effort to build the world’s first atomic bombs.

By the time President Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project on December 28, 1942, work on the East Tennessee site where the first production facilities were to be built was already under way.

Oak Ridge became the home of two uranium enrichment plants (K-25 and Y-12), a liquid thermal diffusion plant (S-50), and a pilot plutonium production reactor (X-10 Graphite Reactor). Groves approved Oak Ridge as the site for the pilot plutonium plant and the uranium enrichment plant in 1942. Manhattan Project engineers had to quickly build a town to accommodate 30,000 workers—as well as build the enormously complex plants. [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…]

OREPA has names, remembrance ceremony at Y-12 on Wednesday

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OREPA Peace Cranes at Y-12

Sharon O’Hara-Bruce of Lake Orion, Mich., ties a peace crane to a fence set up in front of the Y-12 National Security during a ceremony last year recalling the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II.

An Oak Ridge peace organization will mark the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, with a names and remembrance ceremony across from the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex on Wednesday morning.

It’s an annual ceremony for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance that commemorates the bombing of Hiroshima near the end of World War II. Uranium for that bomb, code-named Little Boy, was enriched in Oak Ridge.

The Names and Remembrance Ceremony will be held directly across from the East Bear Creek Road entrance to Y12, starting at 6 a.m. and continuing until 9 a.m., a press release said.

“The ceremony, intended to be a solemn and non-confrontational remembrance, is an effort to join our voices to the voices of the hibakusha—the dwindling band of courageous survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima to say ‘Never again!'” the press release said. “We remember so we do not repeat.” [Read more…]

Workers dismantle Friendship Bell structure

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Friendship Bell Housing Demolition

Workers began dismantling the International Friendship Bell structure on Monday. (Photo by Bill Moore Jr.)

 

A work crew began taking apart the International Friendship Bell House located in Alvin K. Bissell Park on Monday.

A structural evaluation of the bell house earlier this year determined that most of the structure holding the 8,000-pound bell was beyond repair due to water damage to the support beams. The report recommended closing the International Friendship Bell House due to public safety concerns.

The city of Oak Ridge is now working with a number of interested citizens and the Recreation and Parks Board on a campaign to replace the structure with a new permanent building, Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson said in a recent press release.

Once the dismantling of bell house is complete, the Friendship Bell will be lowered to the ground. The bell will once again be accessible to the public for viewing purposes but not for ringing until the bell house reconstruction is complete. [Read more…]

Letter from Prison: Y-12 protesters’ statement on second anniversary of break-in

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Transform Now Plowshares

Note: This is a copy of a letter sent Monday from the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center by Sr. Megan Rice, on behalf of the Transform Now Plowshares.

We send warm greetings and many thanks to all who actively engage in the transformation of weapons of mass destruction to sustainable life-giving alternatives. Gregory Boertje-Obed (U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kansas) Michael Walli (Federal Correctional Institution McKean, Bradford, Pennsylvania), and I are sending you some of our observations and concerns on the second anniversary of our Transform Now Plowshares action.

On July 28, 2012, after thorough study of nuclear issues, and because of our deepening commitment to nonviolence, we engaged in direct action by cutting through four fences at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the U.S. continues to overhaul and upgrade thermonuclear warheads.

On that day, two years ago, when we reached the building where all U.S. highly enriched (bomb-grade) uranium is stored, we prayed and also wrote messages on the wall, such as “The Fruit of Justice is Peace.” (Realistically, the higher and stronger fences built as a result of our nonviolent incursion can never keep humans safe from inherently dangerous materials and weapons.) We acted humbly as “creative extremists for love,” to cite one of our most important and revered leaders, Martin Luther King Jr.

There are a number of reasons for what we did. We three were acutely mindful of the widespread loss to humanity that nuclear systems have already caused, and we realize that all life on Earth could be exterminated through intentional, accidental, or technical error. [Read more…]

Manhattan Project website launches

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Atomic Heritage Foundation Manhattan Project Website

Submitted

WASHINGTON, D.C.—With prospects for a Manhattan Project National Historical Park this year looking good, the Atomic Heritage Foundation is launching a timely new website for prospective visitors to the Manhattan Project communities at www.atomicheritage.org. The new park is expected to generate 500,000 or more tourists to Oak Ridge; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington, during the next decade. As a preview of coming attractions, visitors can take a virtual tour now and immerse themselves in the Manhattan Project online.

With colorful photographs, an interactive timeline, extensive articles on Manhattan Project history, and oral histories of hundreds of Manhattan Project veterans, the new website will be an excellent resource. One feature is the powerful new interpretive tool called “Ranger in Your Pocket.” Based on a BYOD or “Bring Your Own Device” strategy, this technology-based tool represents a fundamental shift in engaging visitors by empowering them to use their personal smartphones or tablets to create their own tour experience. The first “Ranger in Your Pocket” tour is to the historic B Reactor at Hanford. Additional tours under construction will feature Los Alamos and Oak Ridge and draw from AHF’s extensive oral history collection as well as documentary footage and photographs. [Read more…]

Friendship Bell closed while city makes repairs

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Friendship Bell Repairs

A symbol of the friendship between Oak Ridge and Japan, the 20-year-old Friendship Bell at Alvin K. Bissell Park is closed while the city make repairs to the structure holding up the bell.

A 20-year-old symbol of the friendship between Oak Ridge and Japan is closed while the city makes structural repairs.

The Friendship Bell at Alvin K. Bissell Park was designed in Oak Ridge and cast in Japan in 1993. It’s mounted inside a wooden pavilion at the park in central Oak Ridge, but there is some rot in the wooden columns holding up the bell, said Jon Hetrick, Oak Ridge Parks Division supervisor. A structural engineer and an architect are evaluating the pavilion’s condition, and the city is waiting for their report.

Oak Ridge and Japan have a history dating back 70 years, when Manhattan Project production sites in the Secret City enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb used in war. That bomb, code-named “Little Boy,” was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, three days before a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and just days before World War II ended. [Read more…]

Y-12 protesters work to change nuclear policy, prevent another Hiroshima

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OREPA Peace Cranes at Y-12

Sharon O’Hara-Bruce of Lake Orion, Mich., ties a peace crane to a fence set up in front of the Y-12 National Security during a Tuesday morning ceremony recalling the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II.

A few dozen demonstrators from across the eastern United States gathered near the Y-12 National Security Complex on Tuesday morning to remember the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, near the end of World War II 68 years ago.

Some traveled hundreds of miles by bicycle and car to get to Oak Ridge, where they questioned the nation’s current energy policy and preparations for nuclear war. Four riders arrived after a 458-mile, nine-day “Bikes Not Bombs” trip from Cincinnati to Oak Ridge.

“It’s consciousness-raising and concern for the priorities of our society,” said Tim Kraus of Cincinnati, part of the support group for the “Bikes Not Bombs” trip, which was organized by Footprints for Peace. “What we’re doing is not sustainable.” [Read more…]

DOE’s public bus tour begins Monday

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2013 Oak Ridge facilities public bus tour begins June 3 and continues through Aug. 30. The tour offers visitors a first-hand look at the DOE’s Oak Ridge facilities and provides historical commentary on the transformation of the Oak Ridge Reservation during the past 70 years.

The reservation-wide tour is a popular destination for tourists visiting the area. Since its inception in 1996, the DOE public tour program has attracted more than 29,000 visitors from all 50 states. The three-hour tour allows visitors to see the reservation and learn historical facts and updates on the world-class missions under way in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]