Competing Bills Duel For Control Of Hanford Reach Republicans Lobby For Local Level, Democrats Want Federal Management

Another water war is brewing in the rural West, this time over a stretch of river that has international importance.

The Hanford Reach contains some of the best remaining spawning grounds for wild salmon in the Columbia River.

Environmental groups packed a recent hearing in this town to demand the reach be protected under the federal Wild and Scenic River Act.

But Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation, mindful of the uproar over President Clinton’s creation of a new national monument in Utah last year, say local control is the best option for the 51-mile stretch of river.

U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., has introduced a bill calling for shared county, state and federal control of the reach, with counties having the most power.

“Compared to the 1.7 million acres taken out of the state of Utah, this is a very different approach,” Hastings said, refering to Clinton’s creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah.

But U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has introduced a rival bill in the Senate giving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service control of the reach. U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., has introduced a companion bill in the House.

“This is an issue that has far-reaching effects in many different areas,” said Murray, who is expected to face a tough re-election fight next year. “A decision needs to be made and this Congress needs to step up to it.”

“This is not an issue that should be political,” Murray said. “It is critical to our region.”

Washington’s other senator, Republican Slade Gorton, has declined to take a position on either bill.

But Gorton voted against an identical Murray bill last year, and appears to be seeking a compromise between the two measures. Hastings’ bill would create a seven-member commission, dominated by local officials, to manage the reach.

“Nothing is going to happen that there isn’t broad agreement on,” Gorton said last week. “We can’t pass a bill that is anathema to Democrats and the Clinton administration.

“The proponents can’t pass a bill with which I disagree or which Doc disagrees, because it isn’t going to pass through a Republican Congress,” Gorton added.

The subject of the battle is an arid semidesert landscape that has changed little in the nearly 45 years since the federal government - under the atomic-bomb building Manhattan Project - took control of the region.

The reach was included in the 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where the government, under tight security and secrecy, made plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The decades of federal control left the reach in pristine condition. There are no dams, and few roads, buildings, irrigation canals or other developments.

Its 51 miles are the only portion of the Columbia in the United States that is not a slackwater reservoir behind one of 11 dams.

The free-flowing river provides prime spawning ground for salmon that the United States, under international treaties, is bound to try to save.

While the nation is not likely to meet international treaty requirements to rebuild some natural spawning runs by 1998, protecting the reach at least “demonstrates good-faith efforts,” Dicks said.

The Northwest Power Planning Council, a the agency charged with restoring some salmon runs, supports Murray’s plan.

“The reach has become the cornerstone” of the council’s efforts to restore fish and wildlife in the Columbia Basin, said member John Etchart of Montana.

There appears to be no real disagreement that the reach must be protected.

But neighboring counties, which helped draft Hastings’ bill, want to leave open the possibility of agriculture and some other business development in the area. They say that is needed to create a tax base to pay for environmental protection programs.

Hastings said he thinks his bill, which may get a hearing this fall, is a good compromise.

“It appears the local people don’t trust the federal government,” Hastings said. “People from outside the area don’t trust the local people and want to give all authority to the federal government.”

“We have to guard against the federal government being omnipotent,” he said.