On July 28 the National Park Service and the Department of Energy released a draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for jointly managing the park. Over the past month, NPS has been soliciting comments on the draft.
The Atomic Heritage Foundation submitted the following comments. For our full comments, please click here.
“As a nonprofit organization dedicated to the interpretation of the Manhattan Project and its legacy, we look forward to working collaboratively with the National Park Service and the Department of Energy on the interpretation of the new park.
“We also understand the need to defer to the Department of Energy over national security concerns. However, in recent years the policies governing public access have become increasingly restrictive, especially at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. To allow greater public access to the Manhattan Project sites, we urge that the DOE consider adjusting policies, practices and even security boundaries to be more accommodating.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Energy Communities Alliance have also submitted comments on the draft agreement. Once the comments are reviewed, the MOA will be revised as appropriate and sent to the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Energy for approval. The law requires that the agreement be final by December 19, 2015 when the park will be officially established as a unit of the National Park System known as the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.