The ORR has tremendous, untapped potential as a regional destination for low impact outdoor recreation.  At the present time, DOE severely restricts public access to the ORR, allowing access without control restrictions only at four designated greenways and Clark Center Park.  Other allowed recreational opportunities include Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency-managed deer and wild turkey hunts. DOE also supports a few guided nature and bird watching walks.  Clark Center Park offers picnic shelters, softball, volleyball, a boat launching ramp, fishing areas and other recreational activities.

AFORR actively seeks expanded recreational opportunities for citizens of the area. DOE’s reluctance to open additional recreational areas to the public are due primarily to safety and security concerns, the cost of oversight, and responsibility and cost for emergency response.

When the federal government planned for development of nuclear weapon technology at the onset of WWII, safety of the public and security of the installations were important considerations in the location and amount of land required.  Those same considerations of safety and security dictate the need for continued DOE ownership and control of large buffer areas around the current facilities. Having a relatively large buffer area around the installations seperates and protects the local residents from potential releases of toxic or rediologic materials and protects the installations from intrusion by individuals or entities that want to damage sensitive government operations. 

The Oak Ridge Research Park serves as a training ground for future researchers and students from kindergarten to graduate school, as well as faculty and community members.

Research Park educational programs have reached more than 85,000 pre-college students and teachers during the past five years. In addition, the National Environmental Research Park, as a result of its designation as an ORNL User Facility, has attracted more than 700 students and researchers from colleges, universities, industries, and other state and federal government agencies over the past five years.

When the federal government took land for the development of nuclear weapons technology, its acquisitions included large buffer areas for safety and security that surround the major research and production facilities. The agricultural and forest land that was taken has been mostly undisturbed since the initial acquisition, resulting in large, contiguous forest tracts of varying age. Protected from fragmentation and disturbance over the ensuing decades, these areas evolved into ecological sanctuaries of remarkable size and diversity that contain species and ecological communities now absent or uncommon in surrounding areas. The Oak Ridge Reservation is the largest tract of relatively unfragmented native forest habitat remaining in the Southern Ridge and Valley of East Tennessee, and contains more species of breeding birds than any other single tract of land in Tennessee. The ORR is home to state-listed threatened and endangered plants, federally and state-listed animal species, with appropriate habitat for additional listed wildlife species. Natural areas and reference areas containing habitat suitable for threatened and endangered species have been designated for protection from development.