Dozens of Savannah River Site retirees made their way Friday morning to Pawnee Drive for a quick visit with representatives of Nuclear Care Partners, as the business held a drive-through event to express thanks to (and for) retired nuclear workers.
The event, on the 12th anniversary of the National Day of Remembrance for Nuclear Weapons Workers, was in honor of those workers' "memory, legacy and contributions," in the words of Kendra Knauer, a marketing specialist with NCP.
"This was our first drive-through celebration, as a result of COVID-19," she added. "In years past, we've held large events in-person across the country, and we wanted to continue to celebrate these workers this year and make the changes necessary to keep them safe and healthy with COVID-19 … but we still wanted to honor them, and we want to to be able to celebrate the work that they've done and not have that go unnoticed."
Retired workers who came by NCP's Aiken facility Friday morning received a variety of free items such as lip balm, playing cards, sunscreen, note pads, pens, candy and a commemorative pin.
Similar events were held Friday around the country, with some of the most prominent locales being Colorado (home of the now-extinct Rocky Flats Plant), Florida (Pinellas, also defunct), Texas (Pantex) and Albuquerque (Los Alamos National Laboratory). Attendance at the Aiken event was estimated at 150, over the course of two hours.
The Savannah River Site, a pillar of the Aiken-Augusta area's economy for almost 70 years, "was constructed during the early 1950s to produce the basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239, in support of our nation's defense programs," as stated on its website. The facility's original name was the Savannah River Plant, and news of the colossal plan went public in late November 1950.
The website also notes, "Five reactors were built to produce these materials. Also built were a number of support facilities including two chemical separations plants, a heavy water extraction plant, a nuclear fuel and target fabrication facility, a tritium extraction facility and waste management facilities."
