ATOMIC ENERGY IN U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25391, 14 January 1948, Page 7

ATOMIC ENERGY IN U.S.

BIG CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME MODERNISING WAR-TIME PLANT (N.ZJP.A.—Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON. January 12. The United States Atomic Energy Commission had embarked upon a “sizeable construction programme dictated by necessity and urgency,” the director of the Commission’s Production Division (Mr Walter Williams) told a joint Congressional Housing Committee. The programme included the building of new laboratory facilities, jnodernisation and expansion of existing plant and laboratory facilities, replacement of temporary war-time structures and modernisation and expansion of housing and community facilities. “This construction is essential to the fulfilment of the atomic energy programme’s objectives.” he said. The United Press comments that the work, presumably, could include a secret new atomic testing ground on the Eniwetok atoll. Mr Williams said that the major part of the housing and community building scheme would be carried out at Richland, in Washington State, whose permanent population would increase bv 60 per cent, in the next two years. Additional building was also needed at Oakridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.