Red Gate Woods is a forest preserve section within the Palos Forest Preserve, a division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. It is located near where the Cal-Sag Channel meets the

Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago ...

. In the woods is the original site of

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the lar ...

and the

Site A/Plot M Disposal Site The Site A/Plot M Disposal Site is located within Red Gate Woods and situated on the former grounds of Argonne National Laboratory and its predecessor, the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory in Cook County, Illinois and is part of the ...

, which contains the buried remains of

Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...

, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. This section of the forest preserves, then code named Argonne (after

Forest of Argonne The Forest of Argonne () is a long strip of mountainous and wild woodland in northeastern France, approximately east of Paris. The forest measures roughly long and wide filled with many small hills and deep valleys formed by water run-off fro ...

) was leased by county commissioners to the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

(and later Argonne Laboratory) in the 1940s and 1950s. After its initial tests, the reactor at

Stagg Field Amos Alonzo Stagg Field is the name of two successive football fields for the University of Chicago. Beyond sports, the first Stagg Field (1893–1957) is remembered for its role in a landmark scientific achievement of Enrico Fermi and the Metall ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

was removed and reassembled at the

Metallurgical Laboratory The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...

site in these woods ("Site A"). Local residents reported encountering US Army MPs guarding the area during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

but no one was aware of the true nature of the activities until long after the war. After further experiments and the shutdown of Pile 1, by then designated Pile 2, a huge hole was dug and the 2-story high reactor was pushed into it and buried ("Plot M"). Other reactors were also built at the site and nuclear waste was buried there. The site is monitored by the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

and is open to the public. By the 1970s there was increased public concern about the levels of radioactivity at the site, which was used for recreation by local residents. Surveys conducted in the 1980s found

strontium-90 Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and ...

in the soil at Plot M, trace amounts of tritium in nearby wells, and plutonium, technetium, caesium, and uranium in the area. In 1994, the

and the Argonne National Laboratory yielded to public pressure and earmarked $24.7 million and $3.4 million respectively to rehabilitate the site. As part of the cleanup, of radioactive waste was removed and sent to the

Hanford Site The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW ...

for disposal. By 2002, the

Illinois Department of Public Health The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is the code department of the Illinois state government that prevents and controls disease and injury, regulates medical practitioners, and promotes sanitation. IDPH offices The Illinois Department ...

had determined that the remaining materials posed no danger to public health. There is signage in the parking lot showing

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

and

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" an ...

at the Red Gate Woods site during the Manhattan Project. Concrete markers designate historic sites and the foundations of Manhattan Project labs still exist.

References

External links

Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Red Gate Woods Map

Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Palos & Sag Valley Division Maps

Red Gate Woods 2006
(Pictures)

(Pictures) {{coord, 41.7101, -87.9126, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title Manhattan Project sites Argonne National Laboratory Nuclear history of the United States Protected areas of Cook County, Illinois Nature reserves in Illinois Forests of Illinois

See also

References

External links