I've lost my job. I've lost my health. I had to sell my house before the bank foreclosed. Everything I've ever worked for is gone. Savannah River Illnesses found at secondary sites, too After the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, American leaders wanted to ensure that they had bigger and better weapons from a supply line that could not easily be interrupted.
Oak Ridge consists of three facilities with entirely different functions.
The K-25 complex housed giant machines to enrich uranium. Uranium gas was placed in one end and passed through screens with millions of microscopic holes. They were housed in the largest structure under one roof in the world at the time. The X-10 facility, renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is a leading brain trust for modern technologies. Y-12 began making and maintaining the components of nuclear warheads and today is known as the nation's Fort Knox of enriched uranium.