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History of the Research Parks
Interest in ecological research evolved after World War
II as the United States sought security and safety by producing nuclear
weapons in isolated regions surrounded by large buffer zones of
undeveloped land. DOE's predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),
began to recognize the need to track both radioactive fallout from the
testing of nuclear weapons and inadvertent radioactive releases from
nuclear weapons production facilities into the environment and into the
human food chain.
As early as 1952, ecological research on radionuclide
cycling was under way at the Hanford site and on land surrounding other
nuclear weapons facilities. Scientists sought to understand the natural
ecosystem and the transport, cycling, and fate of radionuclides and
other contaminants in soils, water, and air. Out of the radionuclide
research grew pioneering technologies for quantifying the movement both
of natural materials such as nutrients and fluids and of introduced
pollutants through the ecosystem. In 1967 AEC formally designated a
portion of the Hanford site, the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve, as a study
area for scientists and educators--2 years before the National
Environmental Policy Act directed each Federal agency and department to
make environmental protection a part of its mission.
In 1972 AEC established its first research park at the
Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The plan for a research park
emerged during a formal review of the environmental research activities
at Savannah River. The review team, consisting of scientists,
representatives from other Federal agencies, and members of the newly
formed President's Council on Environmental Quality, found the site well
suited for ecological research for several reasons: its security,
current knowledge of its environment, and the fact that it offered
examples of most major ecosystems in the southeastern United States.
Savannah River also illustrated environmental disturbances caused by
energy and weapons development, and it had streams and swamps that
served as study sites for the fate and effects of pollutants in aquatic
ecosystems.
Some of the review team's recommendations shaped the
charter and directives that
were drawn up in 1976 for the DOE research parks. Although some priorities have changed
since then and some terms have acquired new meanings, the charter and its directives still
address many current environmental concerns and, therefore, continue to be
relevant and appropriate today.
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