Brookhaven National Laboratory

BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year.[2] The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km²) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.[3]

Major programs

Location of Brookhaven National Laboratory relative to New York City

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab's mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

• Nuclear and high-energy physics[4]
• Physics and chemistry of materials[5]
• Environmental[6] and climate research
• Nanomaterials
• Energy research
• Nonproliferation[7]
• Structural biology[8]
• Accelerator physics[9]

• Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma[16] and the sources of proton spin.[17] Until 2009 it was the world's most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.
• Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.[18]
• National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), Brookhaven's newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years.[19] NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[20]
• Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab's Nobel prizes.[21]
• Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.[22]
• Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world's largest electrostatic accelerator.[23]
• Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University.[24]
• Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.[25]
• NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.[26]

It is a contributing partner to ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is currently operating at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.[27]

Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the SNS accumulator ring in partnership with Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment in China and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.[28]

Exterior of National Synchrotron Light Source II facility in 2012, during a Brookhaven National Laboratory "Summer Sundays" public tour.

For other than approved Public Events, the Laboratory is closed to the general public. The lab is open to the public on several Sundays during the summer for tours and special programs. The public access program is referred to as 'Summer Sundays' and takes place on four Sundays from mid-July to mid-August, and features a science show and a tour of the lab's major facilities.[29] The laboratory also hosts science fairs, science bowls, and robotics competitions for local schools, and lectures, concerts, and scientific talks for the local community. The Lab estimates that each year it enhances the science education of roughly 35,000 kindergarten to 12th grade LI students, more than 200 undergraduates, and 550 teachers from across the United States.

In January 1997, ground water samples taken by BNL staff revealed concentrations of tritium that were twice the allowable federal drinking water standards—some samples taken later were 32 times the standard. The tritium was found to be leaking from the laboratory's High Flux Beam Reactor's spent-fuel pool into the aquifer that provides drinking water for nearby Suffolk County residents.

DOE's and BNL's investigation of this incident concluded that the tritium had been leaking for as long as 12 years without DOE's or BNL's knowledge. Installing wells that could have detected the leak was first discussed by BNL engineers in 1993, but the wells were not completed until 1996. The resulting controversy about both BNL's handling of the tritium leak and perceived lapses in DOE's oversight led to the termination of AUI as the BNL contractor in May 1997.

The responsibility for failing to discover Brookhaven's tritium leak has been acknowledged by laboratory managers, and DOE admits it failed to properly oversee the laboratory's operations. Brookhaven officials repeatedly treated the need for installing monitoring wells that would have detected the tritium leak as a low priority despite public concern and the laboratory's agreement to follow local environmental regulations. DOE's on-site oversight office, the Brookhaven Group, was directly responsible for Brookhaven's performance, but it failed to hold the laboratory accountable for meeting all of its regulatory commitments, especially its agreement to install monitoring wells. Senior DOE leadership also shared responsibility because they failed to put in place an effective system that encourages all parts of DOE to work together to ensure that contractors meet their responsibilities on environmental, safety and health issues. Unclear responsibilities for environment, safety and health matters has been a recurring problem for DOE management.

Since 1993, DOE has spent more than US$580 million on remediating soil and groundwater contamination at the lab site and completed several high-profile projects. These include the decommissioning and decontamination of the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor,[30] removal of mercury-contaminated sediment from the Peconic River, and installation and operation of 16 on- and off-site groundwater treatment systems that have cleaned more than 25 billion gallons of groundwater since 1996.[31]

Shortly after winning the contract to operate the lab in 1997, BSA formed a Community Advisory Council (CAC) to advise the laboratory director on cleanup projects and other items of interest to the community. The CAC represents a diverse range of interests and values of individuals and groups who are interested in or affected by the actions of the Laboratory. It consists of representatives from 26 local business, civic, education, environment, employee, government, and health organizations. The CAC sets its own agenda, brings forth issues important to the community, and works to provide consensus recommendations to Laboratory management.[32]

• Center for the Advancement of Science in Space—operates the US National Laboratory on the ISS.
• Tennis for Two[39][40]
• Goldhaber fellows

• "Dr. Strangelet or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Bang"

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brookhaven National Laboratory.

• Brookhaven National Lab Official Website
• Physics Today: DOE Shuts Brookhaven Lab’s HFBR in a Triumph of Politics Over Science 404
• Summer Sundays at Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Annotated bibliography for Brookhaven Laboratory from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Headlines