At Conference, DOE Historian Presents on Connection Between DOE Sites and Ecological Research

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Chief Historian Eric Boyle presented an overview of the history of DOE's National Environmental Research Parks at a conference in Milwaukee in July, highlighting the perspectives of scientists who worked at six parks at the time they were established.

Boyle was a co-presenter at the North American Congress for Conservation and Restoration 2026. He was joined by Sarah Jensen, J.D., senior policy advisor and environmental protection specialist for DOE; and Heida Diefenderfer, Ph.D., senior earth scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and faculty fellow at the University of Washington.

Conference invitees represented the fields of land stewardship, ecological monitoring, natural and cultural resources management, wildlife and range resources, compliance, biology, and ecology.

"Our collaborative presentation was designed to offer an overview of the sites where DOE has environmental research parks," Boyle said. "We covered their historical origins and the unique ecoregions they represent. It was also an opportunity for me to highlight some of the preliminary findings from oral histories I conducted with six scientists who were there when the parks were originally established in the 1970s, '80s and '90s."

The Society for Ecological Restoration Midwest Great Lakes Chapter and the Society for Conservation Biology North America co-hosted the event. The joint conference brought members of the two groups together to learn from each other and create a network-building event for their members.

Boyle's and his co-presenters' overview of DOE's National Environmental Research Parks described DOE's evolving, expanding national security and science missions. The interactive part of the session included scientists and managers from seven National Environmental Research Parks located at DOE sites: Savannah River Site, Nevada National Security Site, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Hanford Site, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Feedback from attendees was also collected to inform the future direction and operation of the parks.

Discussion centered on land management at these DOE sites over 50 years across ecoregions including desert shrub, eastern deciduous forest, juniper-pinyon and grassland, shrub-steppe and shrub-steppe and riverine, southeastern mixed forest, and tallgrass prairie.

In these areas, required environmental monitoring has revealed an inventory of thousands of plant and animal species, conference organizers said in material prepared for attendees.

"Decades of limited public access, other than permitted DOE research and operations activity, has coincidentally preserved large expanses of habitat, some the last of its kind," organizers wrote.

Boyle said the research at these parks over the course of the past several decades has had an enormous impact on the field of ecology.

"Oral histories with researchers highlighted a wide range of scientific, regulatory, educational, and collaborative benefits," he said. "Even though interviewees noted that funding streams for parks have been inconsistent from site to site, the work has continued. The designation of the parks alone has provided crucial symbolic value, lending credibility and justification for ongoing environmental monitoring and research."

After the presentation, attendees watched a screening of the film No Turning Back, made by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and released in 1971. The film, narrated by actor Lorne Greene, begins with scenes suggesting that "the wealth of Earth and all its beauty are part and parcel of (man's) own proud future. But there are gross mistakes that he must guard against. Now more than ever, man must measure his effect on nature. Still, his needs are great and growing, and there is no turning back."

Boyle found the film at the National Archives and Records Administration. He collaborated with the DOE Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security, which arranged to have the film reproduced in digitized form.

"It was likely the first public screening of that film in more than 50 years," Boyle said.