After a solid night’s sleep and an excellent breakfast, we were ready to explore some of Kennewick/Richland area with our hosts. First stop was the REACH Museum. We were there for a few hours, but we could have easily spent a couple of days there. We thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition about the Manhattan Project. It provided comprehensive information about the Manhattan Project and how critical the surrounding area’s natural resources were to the success of the project.

The Hanford site was chosen in1942 for its relative isolation and its proximity to Grand Coulee Dam for electricity and the Columbia River for cooling water for its reactors. The Hanford site produced plutonium for the first atomic bomb and remained an active nuclear production and research center until its retirement in 1990. The two towns of Hanford and White Bluffs had to be evacuated and the Wanapum Native American nation was relocated in order to build the site. At its peak during the war, the Hanford site employed as many as 51,000 workers. The last reactor shut down in 1987 and the last of the plutonium separation facilities shut down in 1990.

Unfortunately, the production of plutonium creates extremely toxic and radioactive waste which can remain hazardous for hundreds of years. The liquid wastes were stored in single shell containers buried deep in the ground and holding as much as a million gallons of liquid radioactive waste. The solid wastes, mostly from spent fuel rods, was stored in corrosion prone canisters inside water filled basins. Other contaminated materials were stored in pits and trenches. Leakage from these containers created the biggest environmental cleanup in U.S. history costing more than $3 billion. It still has a long way to go and will not be completed until sometime in the 2040’s.

We were also able to learn a little about  development of the land formations in the area including the effects of tectonic plate movement, volcanism, the past ice ages and melting glaciers. The flood waters from the melting glaciers were responsible for many of the unique rock formations in the Columbia Basin.  There was also an outdoor section with information about local animals,  native plants, and growing hops. Being a beer brewer, I was interested to learn that around 70% of hops grown in the US are grown in Washington state.

We finished off our first full day in Kennewick at one of our friends’ favorite wine tasting rooms, Bartholomew Winery. The wines were excellent. Unfortunately, with the camping and other gear we need to take with us on these trips, there’s no space left over in the Miata for wine or other souvenirs, so we were limited to a single bottle of wine to take with us.