A bill that passed Thursday in the U.S. House includes big changes for the Tri-Cities. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 would create a new set of national parks in honor of the top-secret Manhattan Project.
That would include a museum at Hanford and other historical sites.
Officials in the Tri-Cities haven’t broken out the bourbon to toast quite yet. This national defense bill still has to pass the Senate intact. And it must be signed off by President Obama.
The bill would make new parks at Hanford, Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. About 10,000 people visited Hanford’s B-Reactor last year.
The new legislation would also open the closed Rattlesnake Mountain to guided public tours and even hiking. Northwest tribes have opposed public tours to that part of the Hanford Reach National Monument for years, saying the area is sacred.
The bill also includes plans to transfer about 1,600 acres from the U.S. Department of Energy to the Tri-Cities community. There’s talk of an energy park.
Senior U.S. Representative Doc Hastings from Eastern Washington is about to retire at the end of this session and Washington Senator Patty Murray has lost some of her power with the change to a Republican-led Senate. So further tries to push these Manhattan parks through next year could be made more difficult.
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