Oak Ridge Today

Atomic Heritage Foundation launches “Oak Ridge Innovations” program

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“Nuclear medicine, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons. All of that goes back to Oak Ridge,” explains Denise Kiernan, bestselling author of “The Girls of Atomic City.” Oak Ridge, Tennessee has been a center for nuclear research since General Leslie Groves selected it as the Manhattan Project’s uranium enrichment site in 1942. Today, Oak Ridge is the home of many leading scientific and engineering research facilities, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation has launched a new online interpretive program, “Oak Ridge Innovations,” to explore Oak Ridge’s legacies for science and society today. Available on AHF’s “Ranger in Your Pocket” website, “Oak Ridge Innovations” includes more than 30 video vignettes describing ORNL’s history and current research in fields such as energy, particle physics, computer science, and medicine, a press release said. The program was developed in partnership with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers East Tennessee Section and funded by the IEEE Foundation. Featuring perspectives from current ORNL scientists and Manhattan Project veterans, the program illuminates Oak Ridge’s history and how the laboratory responds to some of today’s biggest challenges, the press release said.

[Read more…]

DNFSB: Moving fissile materials, operations from Y-12 building improves nuclear safety, reduces risk

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Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

 

Nuclear materials and operations have been removed from an old building at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and that improves safety and reduces the risk to workers and the public, a federal safety board said.

The building, 9204-2, or Beta 2, is on the west side of Y-12. It’s one of nine buildings at the 811-acre site that once used machines known as calutrons to enrich uranium for atomic bombs as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II. It’s now used to produce lithium for nuclear weapons.

In an early September report, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said Consolidated Nuclear Security and the National Nuclear Security Administration Production Office had officially downgraded Building 9204-2. It had been a category two hazard, but it is now less than category three. It’s considered non-nuclear.

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Atomic Heritage Foundation launches new audio, visual program on Oak Ridge

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Bill Wilcox 90th Birthday Party

Oak Ridge City Historian Bill Wilcox, who died in 2013, was a longtime advocate for preserving the city’s history, including parts of its federal facilities. Wilcox is pictured above at his 90th birthday party in the spring of 2013.

 

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“There was construction going on everywhere you looked,” Bill Wilcox remembered, describing his first impressions of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. “Trucks and people just crawling all over the place, hammers and banging. Wooden structures going up everywhere. Nothing was paved, and there weren’t any sidewalks.”

Wilcox was one of the thousands of people who moved to the new “Secret City” of Oak Ridge to work on the Manhattan Project, the top-secret World War II effort to develop an atomic bomb.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation has launched a new online interpretive program on Oak Ridge with 16 audio/visual vignettes. This beta program is part of AHF’s “Ranger in Your Pocket” series on the Manhattan Project, which focuses on former Manhattan Project sites and features vignettes with eyewitness accounts and expert commentary. AHF welcomes feedback and will improve and expand upon the program over the next year, a press release said.

In September 1942, Manhattan Project director General Leslie Groves designated “Site X,” approximately 59,000 acres of land on the Clinch River in rural eastern Tennessee, as the site for the project’s uranium production facilities. Approximately 3,000 people living in the area in five small farming communities were forced to leave their homes and land with minimal compensation. Construction of a new city began at breakneck speed. By the end of World War II, some 75,000 people would call Oak Ridge home, making it the fifth-largest city in Tennessee. [Read more…]

Ray Smith receives DOE Gold Medal Award for helping to create national park

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D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, left, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, left, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday, Nov. 20, 2017, for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge. The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

 

Note: This story was updated at 4:05 p.m.

D. Ray Smith, Y-12 National Security Complex historian, received a U.S. Department of Energy Gold Medal Award on Monday for his role in helping to create the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge.

The award was presented to Smith by retired Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, DOE under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Smith is retiring this month. He previously told Oak Ridge Today that he would retire November 22.

Established in November 2015, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park is a unique three-site park that includes Oak Ridge; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. Among other activities, Oak Ridge built uranium enrichment facilities for the Manhattan Project at Y-12 and the former K-25 site, and the city had the pilot facility for plutonium production at the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was then known as X-10. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge could set up committee to celebrate its 75th anniversary

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Y-12 Calutron Girls

Women enriching uranium in calutrons at Y-12 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II. The 75th anniversary of the city that became Oak Ridge and still includes Y-12 is Sept. 19, 2017. (Photo by Ed Westcott)

 

The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday will consider setting up a committee to celebrate the city’s 75th anniversary.

Oak Ridge’s birthday has been recognized on September 19. That’s because the city that is now Oak Ridge was picked for the top-secret Manhattan Project on September 19, 1942, almost 75 years ago. That was the day that 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 program to build the world’s first atomic bombs, before Germany could. Oak Ridge was then 90 square miles of East Tennessee farmland. It was the first site for Manhattan Project facilities.

By the time President Franklin Delano 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…]

HonorAir Flight brings Manhattan Project veterans from Oak Ridge to DC

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Honor Flight 2017 Manhattan Project Veterans Velva Irwin Hugh Barnett Sarah Archer Louise Keaton

On April 5, 2017, Atomic Heritage Foundation staff enjoyed meeting four Manhattan Project veterans from Oak Ridge who participated in an HonorAir Flight Knoxville program. The veterans were Velva Irwin, Hugh Barnett, Sarah Archer, and Louise Keaton. (Photo courtesy Atomic Heritage Foundation)

 

Story and photos courtesy Atomic Heritage Foundation

On April 5, 2017, Atomic Heritage Foundation (AHF) staff enjoyed meeting four Manhattan Project veterans from Oak Ridge who participated in an HonorAir Flight Knoxville program. The veterans were Velva Irwin, Hugh Barnett, Sarah Archer, and Louise Keaton.

Honor Flights, organized by nonprofits around the country, bring World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit the national memorials that pay tribute to their sacrifices. This flight, the 23rd organized by HonorAir Knoxville, carried more than 130 veterans from East Tennessee, including 22 World War II veterans. After arriving in Washington, D.C., the veterans visited the United States Air Force Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the National World War II Memorial, the Marine Corps Memorial, and Arlington National Cemetery.

AHF’s Cindy Kelly, Alexandra Levy, and Nathaniel Weisenberg met the veterans after they came off the bus at the National World War II Memorial. The AHF enjoyed speaking with Hugh, Velva, Sarah, and Louise about their Manhattan Project experiences. The organization took photographs and presented each of them with a Manhattan Project National Historical Park T-shirt featuring Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

First year: More than 80,000 visit three Manhattan Project Park sites in 2016

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bill-wilcox-and-international-friendship-bell-scaled

The late Bill Wilcox by the International Friendship Bell in Oak Ridge. (Courtesy of Friends of the International Friendship Bell via Atomic Heritage Foundation)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 12 p.m. Dec. 8.

More than 80,000 people have visited the three sites of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge, according to a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

Besides Oak Ridge, the park includes Hanford, Washington, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In Oak Ridge, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park has a volunteer or ranger at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge when the museum is open. The park also has activities. For example, there is a program on secrecy, security, and spies at the Oak Ridge Turnpike Gatehouse in west Oak Ridge on Saturday, December 17. And the park, in partnership with the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, will be featuring a Parks in Focus photography exhibit during the month of December. The photography exhibit is located in the Imagination Gallery at the museum located at 461 West Outer Drive.

Also, a virtual tour of the K-25 Building can be found at the new K-25 Virtual Museum website. And from March to November, admission to AMSE includes a three-hour bus tour of the Oak Ridge Reservation, including the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, New Bethel Church at ORNL, the visitor overlook at the East Tennessee Technology Park (former home to the K-25 gaseous diffusion building), and Y-12 New Hope History Center. [Read more…]

Manhattan Project Park: ‘Hanford’s Pioneers’ tour launches

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Sally-Jewell-Ernest-Moniz-Manhattan-Project-National-Historical-Park-Nov-10-2015-1

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz shortly after they signed a memorandum of agreement and created the 409th park in the National Park System, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The park was authorized by Congress in December 2014. The park will have three sites in Los Alamos, New Mexico; Hanford, Washington; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The ceremony took place at the South Interior Building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. (NPS Photo by Anthony DeYoung)

 

By Atomic Heritage Foundation

The Atomic Heritage Foundation has launched an online program called “Hanford’s Pioneers,” where visitors can hear first-hand accounts of the people who lived on the Bruggemann ranch and other pre-war sites. This release is timely as the Manhattan Project National Historical Park was officially established last week, on Tuesday, November 10.

In a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C., Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell made the park official. One of the original sponsors of the legislation, Senator Maria Cantwell, spoke of the importance of creating the park, which includes many pre-war sites.

Besides Hanford, the Manhattan Project National Historical Park also includes Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The “Hanford’s Pioneers” tour allows visitors to listen to stories from people who grew up in the towns of Hanford and White Bluffs and the Bruggemann farm, or lived in the Hanford construction camp. Visitors can choose from more than 30 short audio/visual vignettes. [Read more…]

Foundation led efforts to create Manhattan Project Park

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Cindy-Kelly-Victor-Knox-Stephanie-Toothman-Nov-10-2015

AHF President Cindy Kelly with NPS Associate Directors Victor Knox and Stephanie Toothman. (Photo by Atomic Heritage Foundation)

 

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Atomic Heritage Foundation on Tuesday welcomed the official establishment of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park with units at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Hanford, Washington; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In a ceremony at the Interior Department on Tuesday morning, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell signed an agreement that defines the respective roles of the Department of Energy and the National Park Service in implementing the new park, a press release said.

“Today is a milestone for Manhattan Project history,” said Foundation President Cynthia C. Kelly, who attended the ceremony along with the Foundation’s staff. “For more than a decade, the Atomic Heritage Foundation and our partners have been working to preserve Manhattan Project sites and create the park. The national park is long overdue and will provide Americans with an important opportunity to understand the Manhattan Project and its complex legacy for the world today.”

The sites of the Manhattan Project Park “are among the world’s most significant places, where work was done that changed the human world forever,” said Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” and a member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. [Read more…]

Signing ceremony for Manhattan Project park on Nov. 10 in DC

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Hanford B Reactor

The Hanford B Reactor (Photo courtesy Atomic Heritage Foundation)

 

By Atomic Heritage Foundation

The birthday of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, which includes Oak Ridge, is now set for November 10, 2015.

While the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act became law on December 19, 2014, the Act requires that the Departments of Energy and Interior reach an agreement within a year of enactment on their respective roles in implementing the new park. At that time, the park will be officially established.

We understand that the Departments of Energy and the National Park Service leaders are close to an agreement. Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell are scheduled to have a signing ceremony on Tuesday, November 10, in Washington, D.C.

The Manhattan Project Park Act passed after the National Park Service’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget was in place, so the funds available in 2016 for NPS’s work on the park are limited to $180,000.

NPS Associate Director Victor Knox talked about 2016 as a transitional year for the new park, as the Park Service assumes management and focuses on how best to interpret the story of the Manhattan Project. The Department of Energy and its laboratories have been funding a variety of activities this year and have developed a five-year budget plan for restoring and providing public access to its historic assets. [Read more…]

Atomic Heritage meets with Japanese mayors to discuss Manhattan Project park

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AHF Meets with Nagasaki and Hiroshima Mayors

AHF President Cindy Kelly with Nagasaki Mayor Tomahisa Taue on her right and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui on her left. (Photo by AHF)

 

The Atomic Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit organization that worked for 15 years to create a Manhattan Project national park, met with the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki this month to discuss how the story of the atomic bomb will be interpreted.

The meeting, which was held at the Institute of International Education at the United Nations Plaza in New York City, marked a “positive first step in opening a dialogue with the Japanese, whose input will be important to the interpretation of the new park,” a press release said. In addition to the two mayors, the Atomic Heritage Foundation also met with Japanese local government officials.

The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first nuclear weapons during World War II. The Manhattan Project National Historical Park will include Oak Ridge; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington.

The meeting in New York City on Friday, May 1, began with opening remarks from Nagasaki Mayor Tomahisa Taue and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, who described the suffering of those affected by the atomic bombing, a press release said. They expressed hope that interpretation of the new Manhattan Project Park would not end with the dropping of the bomb but also “focus on what happened under the mushroom cloud.”

The United States dropped one bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, and a second over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Japan surrendered a few days later. Uranium for the first weapon, code-named “Little Boy,” was enriched at federal sites in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Atomic Heritage to discuss Manhattan Project interpretation with Japanese mayors

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Hiroshima Peace Bell

Hiroshima Peace Bell (Source: Atomic Heritage Foundation)

 

The Atomic Heritage Foundation will meet Friday with the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to discuss the interpretation of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort in World War II to create an atomic bomb, and its legacy for the world today, a press release said.

The meeting will be at the Institute of International Education at the United Nations Plaza in New York.

The Atomic Heritage Foundation led efforts to establish a Manhattan Project National Historical Park for more than a decade. (The City of Oak Ridge also supported the park and lobbied for it.) The park was approved in legislation that passed Congress in December, and it includes Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico.

“Now AHF is working on the interpretation of the park and welcomes a dialogue with the Japanese to consider this world-changing history from both an American and an international perspective,” the press release said. “The meeting with the mayors is a first step in the process.” [Read more…]