Hanford’s B Reactor Named a National Historic Landmark
by Matt McGee on August 25th, 2008. Filed under: Richland News.
The City of Richland (and all of the Tri-Cities, for that matter) continues to evolve away from being so reliant on Hanford for jobs and its economic boost to the area. Part of that is positioning the area as a tourist destination — and now Hanford is helping with that even more.
The federal government today designated Hanford’s B Reactor as a National Historic Landmark, a move that’s pretty much guaranteed to increase tourism locally. The designation includes a plan to open up public access to the reactor in time for the 2009 tourist season. At the moment, there are only about 50 tours per year of the B Reactor, but that will change significantly early next year. Here are some details from the official news release:
Beginning in March 2009, individuals and families will be able to tour B Reactor at least three days a week through October 2009 by presenting identification at the Hanford Site. In order to expand access to this site, DOE must first make a number of infrastructure improvements: transportation will be provided from a site access point directly accessible to State Highway 240 to Yakima, gating will be constructed, temporary restroom facilities will be installed, and minor road repair and preparation will be performed.
That means drive-up tours of the B Reactor — no need to pre-register for the hard-to-get slots on those rare occasions when they open up the facility. This is great news for Richland and the local area. No doubt we’ll get a nice bump in tourism traffic from World War II and nuclear historians wanting to see the reactor in person.
You can watch some video highlights of today’s ceremony on the Hanford.gov web site.
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