Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill To Commemorate Manhattan Project Through New National Historical Park Site in New Mexico, Washington and Tennessee

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As an expert panel of historians reported in 2001, the top-secret program to create an atomic bomb during World War II centered in Los Alamos, NM, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash.  That effort has been called "the single most significant event of the 20th century."

"Providing visitors with opportunities to form their own intellectual and emotional connections with the significance of sites to be included in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park helps them understand its relevance to our shared national heritage," Bingaman explained.  "There is no better place to understand history than where it happened, and that's what national parks and the National Park Service do best."

The National Park Service, at the direction of Congress, conducted a special resource study on several Manhattan Project sites for possible inclusion in the National Park System.   The study recommends that the best way to preserve and interpret the Manhattan Project is for Congress to establish a national historical park at the three sites where much of the critical scientific activity associated with the project occurred:  Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Hanford. 

Operating from December 1942 until September 1945, the Manhattan Project was a $2.2 billion effort that employed 130,000 workers at its peak, but was kept largely secret and out of public view. 

Bingaman's bill calls for the U.S. Department of Energy to partner with the National Park Service in developing and managing the proposed park, as most of the sites are under Department of Energy administration.  They would be directed to consult with the public and other stakeholders to develop a management plan.

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For more information, please contact

Bill Wicker at 202.224.5243

or bill_wicker@energy.senate.gov

or Rosemarie Calabro at 202.224.5039

or rosemarie_calabro@energy.senate.gov