Salazar pushes Hanford reactor as national park

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the historic B Reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation should be part of a national park to tell how the nuclear era was born out of World War II.

Salazar visited the reactor Sunday with Sen. Maria Cantwell, Rep. Doc Hastings and Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The Tri-City Herald reports the B Reactor would be a key attraction in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park along with properties at Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge. Tenn.

Built in just 13 months, the B Reactor produced plutonium for the first nuclear explosion in New Mexico and the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

Cantwell and Hastings are working on legislation to create the multi-state national park.