ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Anti-nuclear activists say they will fight a proposal to create national parks at Los Alamos National Laboratory and two other sites where the world’s first nuclear bombs were developed.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released a study to Congress last week that recommends establishing a national historical park to commemorate the top-secret Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb.
But Greg Mello, who heads the Los Alamos Study Group, said Monday that the recommendation debases the idea of national parks by glorifying weapons of mass destruction.
National Park Service spokesman David Barna defends the proposal. He says the idea is to preserve the history of the Manhattan Project, good or bad.
If Congress approves, the parks would be created at Los Alamos, N.M.; Hanford, Wash.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn.
