Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

south of MTR at ATRC. At the time of initial
operation, ETR was the largest and most
technically advanced materials test reactor in the
world. Like the older MTR, the original ETR
mission was to evaluate fuel, coolant, and
moderator characteristics for future reactor
designs. The demand for expanded and more
technically advanced reactor testing capability was
so great that even before ETR became operational,
planning was underway for yet another, even more
advanced test reactor at INL.
Construction on the Advanced Test Reactor
(ATR) began in 1961, and at that time it was the
largest single construction project ever undertaken
in the State of Idaho. Located approximately 200
yards north of the old MTR reactor building, ATR
began operation in 1967. ATR performed
experiments similar to those conducted at the
MTR and ETR facilities, with the U.S. Navy as the
primary customer. ETR was shut down for the last
time in 1982 and has since been demolished. MTR
now stands vacant and is awaiting demolition.
ATR remains in operation, still performing its
materials testing mission. Since the 1950s, the
ATRC reactors have made vast and fundamental
contributions to the development of nuclear
science and engineering (Braun and Marler 1996;
INEL 1969).
Radioactive Waste Management Complex.
RWMC was established in the southwestern
corner of INL in 1952 to accommodate increasing
amounts of radioactive wastes being generated by
the new reactors. From 1954 to 1970, transuranic
(TRU) wastes from the nation’s national defense
programs were disposed of in the RWMC’s
Subsurface Disposal Area (SDA) (DOE-ID 1996).
In 1970, TRU wastes began to be stored above
ground in an expanded TRU waste storage area
(INEL 1969). At the facility’s Stored Waste
Examination Pilot Plant (SWEPP), the TRU waste
has been vented, examined, and certified for
eventual disposal at a permanent national
repository, such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
in New Mexico. The Advanced Mixed Waste
Treatment Project (AMWTP), which began
operation in 2003, expanded the complex’s waste
management operations to include treatment of
65,000 cubic meters of INL low-level and TRU
waste currently stored at the Transuranic Storage
Area and prepare the wastes for shipment out of
Idaho. RWMC presently consists of the SDA, the
TRU waste storage area, an administrative
complex, and the operations zone. Although most
of the above-ground structures were built after
1970, many of the features at RWMC are
important for the role they have played in the
development of radioactive waste management
technology.
Naval Reactors Facility. Also in the early
1950s, work began at INL to develop and test
reactor prototypes for the U.S. Navy. The initial
power run of the prototype reactor (S1W) for the
world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus,
was conducted at INL on May 31,1953, proving
that atomic propulsion of ships was possible (see
Figure 20).
Figure 20. Promotional poster for the USS
Nautilus nuclear-powered submarine program.
The U.S. nuclear Navy was born and, in 1958,
a propulsion reactor prototype designed for use in
surface ships (A1W) was also designed and built
at NRF. The A1W prototype facility consists of a
dual-pressurized water reactor plant within a
30