Tri-Cities Official Visitors Guide 2008 - (Page 21) Designated by President Clinton as a National Monument in June 2000, the Hanford Reach is the only free-flowing, non-tidal stretch of the Columbia River remaining in the United States. Just north of Richland, a 51-mile stretch of unbridled river flows through a spectacular landscape of white bluffs, dunes, and desert plateaus. Along with the river, rare birds and animals find refuge in this protected tract of wilderness. Visitors to the Hanford Reach National Monument are often rewarded with views of American white pelicans, osprey, bald eagles, black-crowned night herons, great egrets, cormorants, Caspian terns, blue heron, prairie falcons, red-tailed hawks, elk, mule deer, coyote, river otter, and many other spectacular animals which inhabit this natural sanctuary. As the rest of the Columbia River and eastern Washington’s arid shrub-steppe ecosystem gave way to development, the Reach and surrounding land survived as an unexpected benefit of security requirements of World War II’s Manhattan Project. In fact, the Hanford Reach shelters the largest remaining tract of sagebrush grassland in the country. In 1967, the then U.S. Atomic Energy Commission set aside 120 square miles of relatively pristine shrubsteppe on the Hanford site to preserve portions of the sage covered grassland that once covered the American West. Now known as the Fitzner/Eberhardt Arid Lands Ecology (ALE) Reserve, this portion hosts a staggering diversity of plant life which changes with elevation. Including bitterbrush, rabbitbrush, hopsage, Sandberg’s bluegrass, dropseed, squirrel-tail grass, bluebunch wheatgrass, rosy balsamroot, and a variety of flowering forbs. The Hanford Reach National Monument includes the river, shoreline, Hanford Dunes, and ALE Reserve; and is a truly unique asset. The Monument is a biological treasure, encompassing important riparian, aquatic, and upland shrub-steppe habitats that are rare or in decline in other areas. Indeed, the Monument is an archaeologically diverse landscape containing an array of scientific and historic objects, including irreplaceable natural and historic legacies arising from the Manhattan Project. The Monument includes 195,000 acres of the 375,000-acre Hanford Site. The US Department of Fish and Wildlife manages 165,000 acres of the Monument and the Department of Energy manages 30,000 acres. Take a jet boat or kayak tour of the Reach. See page 14 for a complete list of sightseeing tour operators. For more information, contact the US Department of Fish and Wildlife at 371-1801 or visit http://hanfordreach.fws.gov. the last Free-Flowing stretCh oF the Columbia riVer (800) 254-5824 or (509) 735-8486 www.VisitTri-Cities.com 21 Gary White Gary White http://hanfordreach.fws.gov http://www.VisitTri-Cities.com
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