Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cruise around the Tri-Cities and you'll find Atomic Ale Brewpub & Eatery, Atomic Body Shop, Atomic Laundry, Atomic Foods,
and Atomic Health Center. The local high school team's name is the Bombers, with an atomic mushroom cloud as its emblem.
There's a reason for this-the 560-square-mile Hanford Site just north of Richland, the source of much of the plutonium in Amer-
ica's nuclear arsenal.
During World War II, the United States began a frenzied race to develop an atomic bomb. The first controlled nuclear chain
reaction experiments were conducted in late 1942, and within a few months the government had selected the Hanford site for its
plutonium production plant. The location seemed perfect: remote enough for secrecy and safety, but still near railroads, an abund-
ant source of water for cooling, and hydroelectric power for energy. The entire Manhattan Project was conducted with such secrecy
that few of the construction workers knew what they were building. Three plutonium production reactors came online in time to
provide the concentrated nuclear material for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
During the Cold War, the need for plutonium began to taper off, and the facility closed its doors, although the Hanford Site is
still home to a Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) nuclear plant.
After the closing of the last plutonium reactor, the environmental problems that had been shrouded in secrecy for more than 45
years began to surface. Left behind were 54 million gallons of radioactive waste and powdery radioactive iodine spread around the
local flora. Quite a bit of waste was stored in leaky containers that had gradually drained into the groundwater.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Washington State Department of Ecology, and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency began the full-scale cleanup. The easiest problems at Hanford have been resolved in the last few years, but real problems
remain, particularly the toxic stew of radioactive waste that sits in underground tanks or has escaped into the ground.
One surprising effect of the shutdown of Hanford and subsequent cleanup has been that it has spawned economic growth in
the Tri-Cities. Billions of dollars in federal funds have flowed into the region, providing employment for thousands of engineers,
spill experts, construction workers, and others. With an eventual price tag of somewhere between $30 billion and $100 billion,
the environmental cleanup has proven to be a far bigger project than the reactors ever were. Due to the need for professionals to
perform local research, the little town of Kennewick has managed to attract a higher concentration of PhDs per capita than in any
other town in the western United States.
Although wheat is the most important crop in the Walla Walla area, onions are the town's claim to fame. The famous Walla Walla
sweet onions were developed from Spanish and Italian varieties first brought here in the late 19th century. These mild-flavored,
juicy, large onions actually have almost no sugar, but they have only half the sulfur of other onions. And it's the sulfur that gives
onions their strong bite and causes tears.
Pick up a bag of Walla Walla sweets while you're in town.
If you've got a kitchen and a barbecue in your hotel unit, grab a bag of sweets while in Walla Walla and wow your travel com-
panions with the following recipe.
