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…]