S-0584.3                   _______________________________________________

                                            SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8023

                              _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              53rd Legislature                             1993 Regular Session

By Senators Loveland and Hochstatter

Read first time 03/04/93.  Referred to Committee on Natural Resources.

Petitioning Congress to not designate the Hanford Reach as wild and scenic or as a wildlife refuge.

          TO THE HONORABLE BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

          We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

          WHEREAS, In 1988 Congress asked the Secretary of the Interior to study alternative means of protecting the Hanford Reach, that fifty-one mile segment of the Columbia River stretching north from the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington; and

          WHEREAS, In June of 1992, the National Parks Service issued a draft environmental impact statement, the preferred alternative recommendation of which is that Congress designate the Hanford Reach and surrounding one hundred two thousand acres as a national wild and scenic river and national wildlife refuge; and

          WHEREAS, The United States government happens to now own approximately ninety thousand of the surrounding one hundred two thousand acres; and

          WHEREAS, The United States government took said portion during World War II, when it hurriedly, sterilely displaced American farmers from their land to accommodate the government's production of nuclear weaponry; and

          WHEREAS, The people of the region have maintained, more than mere hope, the expectation that their patriotism would be rewarded not with permanent federal ownership of this rich farmland, following its nuclear-related defense or energy utility, but that the land would be returned to private agricultural production; and

          WHEREAS, Your Memorialists fully recognize the value of the Reach as a spawning habitat for one hundred thousand Chinook Salmon, a cultural resource of immeasurable importance, an environment for a great diversity of plants and animals including threatened species, and a recreational destination for salmon and steelhead anglers; and

          WHEREAS, Although said attributes must unquestionably be preserved and protected, they already are and will continue to be preserved and protected under an existing regime of federal laws and intergovernmental agreements; and

          WHEREAS, Said laws and agreements importantly also take into account the region's economy, its energy needs, and its local governmental integrity, and include:  The Northwest Power Act which creates the Northwest Power Planning Council, which was directed to craft an energy plan that protects wildlife and realizes energy needs of a hydroelectric dependent region; and the Vernita Bar Agreement on river flows that protects the archaeological sites, the diverse plant and animal species, and over ninety-nine percent of the spawning Chinook Salmon in the Reach; and

          WHEREAS, As such an additional federal governmental overlay would not only be redundant and therefore repugnant to the independent local populations, but would also pose a risk that the lives of the locals could be impacted in a more tangible way:  That is, because the National Park Service is duty-bound to uphold but the environmental side of the heretofore carefully balanced approach to protecting the Reach, the Region is gravely concerned that control by the Park Service might leave forsaken the region's economic and energy needs; and

          WHEREAS, The economic prospect that the federally owned portion may in the future again sustain private agriculture would be effectively erased forever should the National Park Service recommended designations occur;

          NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that for all the above reasons, Congress refrain from passing legislation designating the Hanford Reach area of the Columbia River a national wild and scenic river or a national wildlife refuge, and return to private ownership that federally owned land that may, in balance with water availability and environmental protection, sustain agricultural production.

          BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Bill Clinton, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

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