After the Good Sam rally, we
stayed on at Wine Country RV Resort for a couple more days. By Monday noon, as
the rally-goers continued their exodus there were only a few of us left,
scattered throughout the park. It was quiet and peaceful, a stark contrast to
the hubbub of the past weekend.
We went
walkabout into town, found a grocery store that actually carried flax seeds
which we ran out of (they are not easy to find), popped into the well-stocked
quilt store in town, and just generally relaxed. I caught up with my blog
posts, and also some house work. Being on the road still requires home care,
like vacuuming (so glad to have a central vac on board), basic cleaning, and
laundry(so glad to have a washer/dryer on board). It takes a lot less time to
get housework finished in a 36- foot coach.
And that
leaves more time to sew. I brought along my scrap strips and have been working
on two scrappy child quilt tops. The set up with the new desk works really
well. And at the quilt store I found a perfect border fabric for one of the
quilt tops.
This morning we moved on. With the continuing good weather at this time of
year, we decided to loiter in Eastern Washington and revisit a couple of places
that we have enjoyed previously. First one on the list is Sun Lakes, located at
the base of Dry Falls, close to Coulee City. But first
we made a quick stop along the way in Richland, first at Costco and then at the
REACH Museum.
The
museum is named after the 51-mile long Hanford Reach, the only remaining
free-flowing section of the Columbia River. (All the rest of the US section of the Columbia
River is backed up behind 11 dams and no longer flows, or is tidal at the river
mouth). The REACH museum was well worth the stop and focuses on two major
exhibits. The first is about the geology and history of the Columbia Basin with
its fascinating topography and wildlife.
The
second is an exhibit about the Manhattan Project and Hanford Nuclear site about
30 miles north of Richland.
Two very
diverse topics but interrelated, each a legacy to the Columbia River and
Tri-Cities region.
The
Columbia River has always been a major player in the history of the region.
The river
was the source of nourishment for the native Indians who fished its
waters for salmon, dating back 10,000 years ago, and continues to support the
diverse fauna and flora of the region.
In more
recent history, the river opened up the region to initial settlement by whites,
after Lewis and Clark first made their voyage of discovery along its banks in
1805. When gold was discovered in British Columbia and Idaho in the late
1850's, the river brought gold seekers upstream from Portland to White Bluffs
where they joined the pack trains heading north. Cattle ranchers who supplied
the miners with beef arrived shortly after that, followed by farmers who began
to tame the dry soil for cultivation.
Then in
the 1930's, the river played yet another important role that still has
repercussions today. President Roosevelt’s New Deal, in creating
employment during the Depression, put into action an earlier proposal to build
dams on the Columbia River to provide flood control, hydroelectricity and
irrigation to the region. This led to
the construction of federal hydro-power dams including the Bonneville and Grand
Coulee Dams, which generated growth in industry, created jobs and raised the
standard of living in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1939
Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt advising him of the
feasibility of a nuclear chain-reaction in uranium which would generate
enormous amounts of energy that could be used in a bomb, and that Germany was
likely working on a nuclear device. Roosevelt
told his military advisers to take action, and after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor,
development of a nuclear bomb became a priority, named the Manhattan Project.
In December 1942, a team of
scientists, engineers, and Army Corps staff established five main criteria for
the Manhattan Project's plutonium production.
The project required a remote sparsely
populated area to maintain secrecy, with abundant water for cooling and
maintaining reactor temperatures, and plenty of reliable power. The little town of Hanford, population 300,
along the Columbia River was selected and in February 1943 under the Second War
Powers Act, the US government began acquiring land and the residents were
ordered to leave. The town was condemned and the buildings razed in preparation
for the Manhattan Project. The Hanford
Site produced the nuclear material for the uranium-based “Little Boy” bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, and the plutonium used in the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on
Nagasaki.
What impressed me is how quickly
the facility was organized and built, without plans or blueprints, and how
quickly people were hired and moved into Richland, which was selected as the
site for the federally sponsored planned community that would house Du Pont
employees and their families. Construction of homes began in April 1943 with
more than 4,700 homes completed by June 1945. By the end of the war, Richland
had grown from a farming community of 250, to a population of 16,000. It
must have been a logistical nightmare to house and feed the population
explosion. And to keep the whole endeavor a secret.
After WWII work at Hanford
continued to escalate during the Cold War.
The nuclear arms race was the primary concern, and the environmental
consequences were secondary. The result
was significant radioactive contamination of the soil and groundwater, and
releases of contaminated waste into the river.
The other main gallery in the museum celebrates the now protected wilderness
area known as the Hanford Reach National Monument. The area has survived in
pristine state – an unexpected benefit of WWII security requirements for the
Manhattan Project that allowed no public access. The exhibit describes the history of the area,
the ice age floods that carved the coulees and scablands, the fauna and flora
of the region, and the ongoing environmental restoration of the site.
Today, the repercussions of the
Manhattan project continue. The Hanford site is undergoing a major ecological
clean-up to eliminate the radioactive waste that resulted from the manufacture
of plutonium.
It seems fitting that the museum is located on a hill overlooking the Columbia
River.
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| The sculpture in front of the museum looking out across the Columbia River |
