Changes In Reach

Conservation

Commissioners in Benton, Franklin and Grant counties are campaigning to take over federally-protected land along the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River.

The future of the reach, the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River in the United States, is the subject of hot debate.

Many local officials want the area open to industrial and commercial development. Others want the area to remain a pristine wildlife habitat.

The county commissioners oppose a proposal by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to designate the Hanford Reach a federal wild and scenic area.

They would rather see control of the 90,000-acre reach and adjacent Wahluke Slope be given back to the counties, as it was before 1943, when the federal government claimed it as a buffer zone for the Hanford nuclear reservation.

Now that nuclear weapons production has ceased at Hanford, the buffer zone is no longer needed and the U.S. Department of Energy is considering future use of the land.

The counties are already fighting fires and patrolling the area, commissioners said.

If the land is put back on the tax rolls, there’d be more money to work with.