Widgets for Webmasters
WASHINGTON – The world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, the B Reactor at the Hanford reservation in Eastern Washington, took a step toward permanent preservation Tuesday as a key National Park Service board recommended its designation as a national historic landmark. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will make the final decision on whether the reactor, which sits abandoned on the banks of the Columbia River, will receive the landmark designation. Such a designation would go a long way toward protecting the reactor. But the Department of Energy, which owns it, the National Park Service and likely Congress will all have a say in its fate. Built as part of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret U.S. program to develop nuclear weapons during World War II, the B Reactor retains a “time stood still” quality from the dawn of the... [read full story]
