SREL Reprint #2262

The National Environmental Research Park: a new model for federal land use

C. Russell H. Shearer1 and Nat B. Frazer2

1U.S. Department of Energy, Savannah River Operations Office
2Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Savannah River National Environmental Research Park

Introduction: Reflecting upon the explosion of the first atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project, recalled a verse from the Bhagavad-Gita, the seminal philosophical poem of Hindu theology. The verse Oppenheimer recalled, "Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," is erroneously interpreted by some commentators to suggest that he experienced a guilty spirit troubled by the realization of his part in the creation of nuclear weapons. In fact, Oppenheimer's reflection on the verse has a considerably more complex meaning in the context of the Gita, which sets out a principle wherein good and bad are paradoxically interconnected, occasionally requiring one to commit seemingly bad acts to achieve an overall good—a complementarily principle. Indeed, Oppenheimer's quotation of the Gita reflected his own complementarity principle that nuclear weapons provided man with a singular power that was at once the means of man's destruction and of his salvation. To Oppenheimer, a nuclear weapon's power to destroy absolutely promised salvation by rendering war so total and complete that it was unthinkable. Although nuclear weapons did not render warfare—especially proxy wars—entirely unthinkable, Oppenheimer's complementarity principle remains the hallmark of the Cold War because, notwithstanding its preoccupation with nuclear weapons, important beneficial advances and resources were created for mankind, such as those in science, engineering, industry, environmental research, and ecosystem protection.
The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Environmental Research Parks (NERP), located on nuclear weapons sites in South Carolina, Idaho, New Mexico, Washington state, Tennessee, Illinois, and Nevada, illustrates best this complementarity principle. Serving important national defense, science, engineering, and industrial purposes, NERPs also have a complementary role conducting research on the environmental impacts of industrial and other human activities while protecting important habitats and enhancing remediation and restoration technology. The complementary purposes of NERPs are the product of their important ecological, industrial, and intellectual resources.
DOE stewards ecological resources at fifty major facilities in thirty-five states, occupying about 2.4 million acres, more land than Delaware, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia combined. The NERP system comprises over 2 million acres or 84 percent of DOE's total land holdings at seven facilities in six of the major eco-regions across the continental United States. This land represents vast areas of ecologically valuable land, uncontaminated and undeveloped by industrial, residential, agricultural, or recreational uses. Indeed, limited access and the absence of industrial and residential uses on most DOE lands for over fifty years enabled the succession or restoration of habitat, protected flora and fauna, and allowed the species who live there to flourish.

SREL Reprint #2262

Shearer, C.R.H. and N.B. Frazer. 1997. The National Environmental Research Park: a new model for federal land use. American Bar Association's Natural Resources and The Environment 12:46-51.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).