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WORLD> America
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World's first nuclear reactor now a landmark
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-26 16:08 The B Reactor was shut down in 1968 and decommissioned. Under a cleanup schedule managed by the Department of Energy, dismantling could have begun as early as 2009. However, the department said it would maintain the reactor while the National Park Service decides whether it should be preserved and made available for public access. A Park Service advisory board last month recommended designating the reactor a National Historic Landmark, recognition currently granted to fewer than 2,500 sites. Four other Manhattan Project sites have been similarly recognized, including the Trinity site. Hank Kosmata, president of the B Reactor Museum Association in Richland, noted that achieving National Historic Landmark status for Reactor B took longer than building it. "There's an enormous amount of things that can be learned here, whether it's about Enrico Fermi, the history of nuclear energy or how a nuclear plant works," said Kosmata, 78, who went to Hanford as a reactor design engineer in 1954 and now helps lead tours there. "We want people to be able to stop in and spend some time here." About 2,000 people have visited the complex this year. Next year, Energy Department officials plan to expand the number of tours of the building without impeding cleanup, said Jeffrey Kupfer, acting deputy secretary. B Reactor ushered in a nuclear age that not only altered the course of World War II, but also created an important source of power and made innovations in science and medicine possible, said Michele Gerber, a Hanford historian. "Before B Reactor, there was nothing like it," Gerber said, "and since B Reactor, nothing's been the same." |
