DOE OSTI2018
On July 26, 2016, the former US Department of Energy (DOE) Grand Junction Office was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its important, historic roles in the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. The work done from Grand Junction, Colorado, was an important component of the nation's defense program; however, because of the classified nature of the work, little of this history was originally available to the public. In 1943, the privately-owned site that later became the Grand Junction Office was purchased by the US government for the Colorado Area Office for the US Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan Engineer District (MED). The Colorado Area Office's mission was to procure and process uranium as part of a nationwide effort to build an atomic bomb. This race to build a bomb ahead of Nazi Germany became known as the Manhattan Project. Approximately 14% of the uranium obtained for the Manhattan Project was from Colorado Plateau ore-the largest source of domestic uranium ore known at the time. Uranium extracted from vanadium mill tailings was concentrated into uranium oxide, or 'yellowcake,' and shipped by rail to a facility in Tonawanda, New York, for further refinement. At the conclusion of World War II, the military MED mission ended, and the Grand Junction site became the principal US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) office for acquiring and exploring for domestic uranium. The Colorado Raw Materials Office's primary objective was to increase the stockpile of fissionable material as rapidly as possible. To do that, AEC incentivized private industry and invited individual prospectors to locate uranium ores on public lands of the Colorado Plateau. Seemingly overnight, the small city of Grand Junction was transformed into a booming, modern metropolis and the national center of uranium exploration. Program operations in Grand Junction later included those of the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) program, the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA), vicinity properties cleanup, decontamination and decommissioning, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of legacy sites. In 2001, DOE transferred most of the original Grand Junction 55.7-acre site to the Riverview Technology Corporation, a business-development nonprofit sponsored by Mesa County and the City of Grand Junction. The US Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management continues to operate from leased facilities onsite. The Office of Legacy Management will host the 2018 Long-Term Stewardship Conference in Grand Junction on August 20-23. Conference attendees are invited to participate in a special 75. anniversary celebration at the Grand Junction Office where they will have the opportunity to learn more about the office's historic past, its ongoing and expanding work, and its goals of informing future generations. (authors)
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