atomic energy
Downwinders Columbia River Hangs in the Balance of Hanford Cleanup
Department of Energy
Columbia Riverkeeper
By Brent Foster, Columbia Riverkeeper
»Just
Above right: Map of the Hanford site showing retired nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities. Above: Kayaking the White Bluffs section of Hanford Reach.
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above the Hanford Nuclear Reservation the clear blue waters of the Columbia River wind through the dry eastern Washington sage steppe habitat. The only green is a narrow band of vibrant riparian habitat that lines the ‘Great River of the West’ as it meanders through one of its last free-flowing sections. Paddling down the Hanford Reach, as this 51-mile stretch of river is known, you can see the perfect salmon spawning gravels ten feet below the surface and caddis flies swarm along the banks. These are the best remaining salmon spawning habitat on the mainstem Columbia. As one paddles under the Vernita Bridge and enters the Hanford Reservation the Columbia remains perfectly clear. Countless songbirds jump like popcorn in and out of the willows and mulberry bushes lining its banks. White pelicans, coyotes and other wildlife barely notice passing kayakers. Native freshwater mussels, long harvested by Native Americans, still cling to the sculpted river
Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2006
rocks that rolled here from eastern Washington with the great floods that carved the Columbia River at the end of the last ice age. Closed to the public, and protected from the insatiable dam builders who turned most of the Columbia into slack water lakes, the Hanford Reach offers a rare glimpse into the free-flowing Columbia River of the past. But the Hanford Reach’s scenic beauty and abundant fish and wildlife are as deceptive as they are ironic. Traveling by kayak, it does not take long before the first of nine mothballed nuclear reactors comes into sight. “Hanford is the most contaminated site in North America and one of the most significant long-term threats facing the Columbia River,” says Greg deBruler, who has worked on Hanford cleanup issues with Columbia Riverkeeper for almost 20 years. “It’s difficult to comprehend the reality of Hanford’s 150 square miles of highly contaminated groundwater or its 53 million gallons of high level radioactive waste sitting in 45 year old rotting steel tanks.” www.waterkeeper.org
