The Department of Energy has agreed to another reprieve to keep Hanford's historic B Reactor from being demolished.

In a first for the nation's Manhattan Project facilities, DOE has adopted a formal policy requiring it to be preserved while studies to evaluate options for turning it into a museum are evaluated.

The reactor was scheduled to be turned over to Washington Closure Hanford for "cocooning" in 2009. Plans were to be made then for tearing down the reactor to its radioactive core and sealing it up, with demolition work to start in 2010.

"We've been running a race with the wrecking ball," said Hank Kosmata, president of the B Reactor Museum Association. "This will give us the time to work for a final solution."

B Reactor was the nation's first full-scale nuclear reactor and created plutonium for the first atomic bomb test at Trinity, N.M., and for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, to help end World War II. The reactor ushered in the Atomic Age and helped determine how the Cold War would be fought.

"The B Reactor stands as a tribute to the ingenuity and dedication of the men and women who pioneered a nuclear technology in the hope that our nation's security would be preserved for future generations," Jim Rispoli, assistant secretary of energy, said in a statement.

DOE's new policy should give the reactor every possible chance to be preserved, he said.

The new policy will focus DOE officials on "what it would really take to allow public access for the long term," said Colleen French, DOE spokeswoman.

DOE plans an internal review to be finished in May that will look at issues such as how public safety could be ensured, what would be required to ready the reactor for more visitors, costs of retaining the reactor, options for funding and who would assume liability if use of the reactor is turned over to another agency. DOE also is looking at other issues, such as whether the reactor should be removed from the scope of Washington Closure's cleanup contract.

One option might be to make it the responsibility of Hanford's new mission support contractor, French said. The mission support contractor to be named by October will be responsible for long-term maintenance at Hanford.

In addition, DOE is looking at issues such as how visitors would get to the reactor - either through the secure area of Hanford where cleanup is continuing or by a possibly improved road the four miles from the Vernita Bridge area.

DOE also is waiting for two decisions by the Department of Interior.

A National Park Service study evaluating whether the reactor should be preserved and how it could be opened to the public may be finished by fall. A draft of the study is expected in May with public comment in early June. Now the reactor is only open for occasional tours.

The Department of Interior also is considering naming the reactor a national historic landmark. Its technical committee on landmarks has unanimously recommended the status.

"It's just an incredible place," Dave Brockman, manager of DOE's Hanford Richland Operations Office, said in a statement. "Our visitors stand in awe of the reactor's massive front face, where fuel was inserted for irradiation and walk the floors of the control room where the famed physicists and engineers of the Manhattan Project watched as their secret invention came to life."

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who has worked to preserve the reactor, called DOE's policy announcement "a positive step."

Michele Gerber, a historian in Richland and longtime advocate for the reactor, agreed, saying it shows that DOE recognizes the reactor's importance. But she cautioned that "preservation is not assured."

"People who care about the reactor should not let down their guard," she said. "To lose it to history would be a tragedy."

As the Hanford nuclear reservation is being cleaned up, all nine of its plutonium-producing reactors have been scheduled for cocooning. With five of the other reactors torn down to their core, "B Reactor is sitting there like a target," Kosmata said.

This is the second reprieve for the reactor. It had been scheduled to be turned over to a cleanup contractor in 2006, but that was delayed until 2009.