Wahluke Slope

Wahluke Slope is a geographic feature in Grant, Benton and Adams Counties of Eastern Washington. It is a broad, south-facing slope with a grade of about 8%,^[1] situated between the Saddle Mountains and the Columbia River's Hanford Reach. It has been described as "basically a 13-mile-wide gravel bar" created by the Glacial Lake Missoula floods at the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago.^[2] Much of the Slope, part of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, was added to the Saddle Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in 1999.^[3]

Human use

Washington State Route 24 extends from Mattawa, Washington on the western edge of the Slope nearly due east-west. Mattawa is the only population center on the Slope. There was once a town of Wahluke and a Wahluke ferry that crossed the Columbia to the north of White Bluffs.^[4][5] The land was acquired by the U.S. government for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the residents, including Wanapum people, ordered to leave in 1943.^[6] In two actions in 1953 and 1958 the Atomic Energy Commission returned almost 200,000 acres (810 km²) to public use, mostly for agriculture with irrigation recently provided by Columbia Basin Project sources.^[7] Settlement on the Slope by non-Native Americans has been termed as troubled, initially due to lack of water, then later by the Federal Government's land policies, resulting in "sporadic" growth of the town of Mattawa.^[8]

Nuclear concerns

The potential for release of nuclear contaminants into the Slope in the event of a nuclear accident, and the historical atmospheric releases in the ranges of many Curies per month, are of concern to modern authors on Hanford.^[9][10][11]

Viniculture

Viniculture is a major agricultural activity on the Slope, with nearly 10,000 acres of vinyards.^[2]

Notes

1. Wahluke Slope characteristics, Washington State Wine Commission
2. "Wahluke Slope is one of Washington wine country's hidden gems", Northwest wine blog, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 28, 2010
3. Ken Olsen (December 20, 1999), "Hanford leaves a surprising Cold War legacy", High Country News
4. Saddle Mountain Unit (PDF) (Fact sheet), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, August 2002
5. Metsker's Map of Grant County, Washington – via King County Library System collection
6. Sanger 1995, pp. 16–18.
7. Brown 2013, p. 187.
8. Kirk & Alexander 1995, p. 116.
9. Brown 2013.
10. Gerber 2007.
11. PSR 2010.

References

• Brown, K. (2013), "Wahluke Slope: Into Harm's Way", Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, Oxford University Press, pp. 185–188, ISBN 978-0-19-985576-6
• Daniel (September 21, 2010), "Radioactive emissions to the Wahluke Slope", Toxipedia (Washington Nuclear Museum and Educational Center), Physicians for Social Responsibility Washington chapter
• Gerber, M.S.; Findlay, J.M. (2007), "Airborne wastes and the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project", On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, University of Nebraska Press, pp. 107–112, ISBN 978-0-8032-5995-9
• Kirk, Ruth; Alexander, Carmela (1995), Exploring Washington's Past: A Road Guide to History, University of Washington Press, ISBN 9780295974439
• Sanger, S.L. (1995), Wollner, Craig, ed., Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University Continuing Education Press, ISBN 0-87678-115-6

External links

• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Wahluke Slope
• Wahluke Slope map and discussion at Wines Northwest

Coordinates: 46°45′N 119°30′W / 46.750°N 119.500°W