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What are your ideas and opinions about interpretation at the Manhattan Project National Historical Park?
Apr 22 5:30 p.m. EDT
Manhattan Project National Historical Park Stakeholder Engagement Community Meeting
National Park Service
Manhattan Project National Historical Park (MNHP) is initiating a stakeholder process that will be used to help inform the park’s interpretive planning.
Zoom Meeting - Free and open to the public - RSVP
Interpretive themes convey park significance. Primary interpretive themes are the key ideas through which the park’s nationally significant resource values are conveyed to the public. They connect park resources to the larger ideas, meaning, and values of which they are a part. They are the building blocks—the core content—on which the interpretive program is based.
Find more details about the process, background information on the MNHP and register for the first meeting here.
The interpretive plan will provide guidance in developing future services, activities, events and exhibits in Oak Ridge, at the other MNHP locations, and through media outreach.
The recording of the April 13 national introductory webinar for this stakeholder process has just been released:
The days the Earth stood still (Part 1): Covid cleared the air in the lonely Smokies

The lack of regional and local vehicle traffic during the pandemic greatly reduced measurable pollution in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
This is your Hellbender weekend read, and the first in an occasional Hellbender Press series about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the natural world
Great Smoky Mountains National Park shut down for six weeks in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recorded emissions reductions during that period in part illustrate the role motor vehicles play in the park's vexing air-quality issues. The full cascade of effects from the pollution reductions are still being studied.
Hellbender Press interviewed park air quality specialist Jim Renfro about the marked reduction of carbon dioxide and other pollutants documented during the park closure during the pandemic, and the special scientific opportunities it presents. He responded to the following questions via email.
Hellbender Press: You cited “several hundred tons" in pollutant reductions during an interview with WBIR of Knoxville (in 2020). What types of air pollutants does this figure include?
- great smoky mountains national park
- coronavirus
- smokies
- pandemic
- air pollution
- covid19
- air quality
- shutdown
- pollutant reduction
- carbon dioxide
- co2
- motor vehicle
- jim renfro
- nox
- voc
- improvement
- haze
- ozone
- look rock
- emission
- greenhouse gas
- visitation
- visitor
- traffic volume
- analysis
- monitoring station
- particulate matter
- mercury
- acid deposition
- quality control
- quality assurance
- so2 regional haze rule
- national park service
- nps
- air resource specialist
- ecosystem
- bioaccumulation
- so2
- road closure
- power plant
- epa
- environmental protection agency
Big South Fork mulls price increase for camping, other uses
WVLT: Public comment sought on fee increases
Bandy Creek, Blue Heron and Alum Ford campground fees would increase costs to between $15 and $140, depending on use. Comments will be accepted through March 22.