Southeastern Washington Photo Album

This is where my local photographs will go. These will be more into people and things. I have been waiting for a good day to redo the view from Panoramic Point but the summer fires and the haze have not cooperated. I thought it was disgustingly bland; however, you can still see what the local area is like. The current set is better but not really great. The steam plume is located in the central eastern side of the Hanford site. Hanford was created by the Manhattan Project in WWII to produce the man made element plutonium. The plutonium produced by Hanford was later used in a special weapon that was dropped on Japan on August 9, 1945. Japan unconditionally surrendered after Fat Man (the plutonium based bomb) was dropped. When I arrived, they were searching for peaceful uses for the atom. 

You could not drive into or fly over Hanford without proper authorization. I understand that one of the entertainment points was watching a pair of supersonic jet interceptor fighter planes escorting a small, propeller driven plane to the Richland Airport for the pilot to be arrested. The interceptor's, according to some stories, were fully armed but because of the vast difference in air speed were usually badly placed to do anything but totally freak out the dumb pilot that violated Hanford air space.

I have a mental picture of the interceptor pilot doing something almost as bizarre as the Mig-29 pilot that performed at the Paris Air Show. The Russian pilot basically moved around with the plane supported by the thrust of his jet engines. It was pretty cool looking until one engine died where upon the plane rotated and crashed nose first into the ground. The pilot bailed out and his parachute popped open just before he hit the ground. Since he was only shaken up, the only damage was probably to his ego. At any rate, the intruder pilot knew from the positioning of the interceptor's that their plane could be shot down. When one of the interceptor's flew up along side and the pilot pointed to the intruder pilot and then pointed to the Richland Airport, the intruder's all diverted to where they were told to go. Just landing at the Richland Airport without crashing was probably a major accomplishment at this point. The landing may have been worthy of one of the Falcon Codes. The one I am thinking of is the one that went "take that, and that, and that, and ..." as the novice pilot bounces down the runway. I can't imagine what it was like to be in that position. 

As far as Hanford was concerned, you never knew if any of your friends were involved in the Manhattan Project until 50 years later when people finally started talking about what they did during the war. I have long felt that anyone could read a modern Nuclear Engineering Course book and probably know more about the modern process of creating Plutonium than any of these old timers. I'm not speaking from a position of knowledge. For one thing, the neutron cross section data is substantially better. The Neutronics computer programs are all substantially better. A slide rule versus a real 3-D computer simulation is vastly different. This vast difference in the level of knowledge has probably been true for more than 25 years but the code of silence held.

Richland, Washington from Panoramic Point. The line of mountains in the far background are located beyond the northern boundary of the Hanford Project. The 160,000-190,000 acre fire around 1 July 2000 burned the area on the left edge.

This photograph is centered on downtown Richland. The sharp bluffs in the background are called White Bluff's. They helped produce early apples before 1941 when the land was farmed. The bluffs would warm up the local area and produce early apples. Once the Manhattan Project was started, everyone was cleared out and the towns were abandoned. It looks like anything easy to remove was removed and everything else was left behind.

This is a panoramic that covers from Rattlesnake Mountain, Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick. The Yakima River is kind of dirty at this point. There are a lot of dairies up stream. The bacteria from the waste material of the cows makes swimming in this water kind of chancy. The Columbia typically runs between 100-300K ft³/second. The maximum flood stage is usually limited to around 650K ft³/second by the upstream dams. The Yakima flow rate is in the same range as large canals to the Columbia Basin Project.

This links to a panoramic view. It was provided and is copyrighted by Mark D. Smith, 2003. He used a digital camera to shoot the individual images and software to produce the panorama.

View to the east of Richland and centered on the "Blue Bridge". Kennewick is on the right (South) and Pasco is on the left. The view is from Panoramic Point. You can have an idea from this shot about the size of the Columbia. It runs cold, deep, and fast. The flow rate in the spring time is around 600,000 cubic feet per second. Kennewick Man was found on the river bank and located in the area between the two towers of the Cable Bridge in the background. I know where it is on the ground but can't tell from this view point. In the background is a mountain range called the Blue Mountains. Somewhere in that ridgeline is a place called Godman Springs, which is around 6050 feet in elevation. It is 75-100 miles away. Seeing the mountains requires a really clear day, which we don't see very often. The Columbia River at this location averages 340 feet in elevation. It is the pool from McNary Dam, which is located just to the east of Umatilla, Oregon. Umatilla is the name of an Indian tribe and is pronounced like "you-mah-til-ah" When I first moved here, the Nuclear Production Reactors at Hanford made the river warm enough to generate a serious quantities of fog in the winter. The fog stopped about 30 miles downstream from the last reactor. On the photograph, the fog would stop just up stream from where the left edge passes through the river.

This is view that is more to the South from the left one. The road up to Panoramic Point passes just to the right of the large house that is being built. On the very right background is a hill called Jump Off Joe. I don't know why it was called that and never wondered enough to ask.  There are a series of hills that from high up look like someone was pushing the solidifying top layer of pudding to one side. It forms a series of parallel ripples that were caused when some floating island material slammed into the coast to build the western part of Washington State. The west coast, a few million years ago, was just to the west of here. Now we are 200-300 miles inland from the coast. These views are rather unusual. You normally don't have that good a view of the Blue Mountains. I was driving home from eating dinner and as I went up over the freeway to the West bound on-ramp, I could see the skyline. It was too late to change lanes but there was an off ramp a short distance to the West and I took it. I just happened to have the Canon Digital Rebel in the trunk. What you see here is what I saw from Panoramic Point.

View to the northwest from the west side of Panoramic Point. The back ridge is called Rattlesnake Mountain but is only 3500 feet (1067m) high. Its claim to fame is that it is the tallest mountain in Washington without a tree on it. Most people tend to believe the PR BS that Washington is the Evergreen State. Well, that mountain may be green at times but it is only after a very wet winter. Most people tend to forget that the leeward side of the costal mountain ranges are deserts from Canada to Argentina. There is an observatory on the top where a Nike anti-aircraft missile site was located. At some point, the telescope will be viewable from the Internet. The fire line from the Hanford Wild Fire of 2000 is plainly visible on the ridgeline of Rattlesnake.

The right image is a view of Rattlesnake Mountain from the Yakima River just above the dam at Horn Rapids.

The Columbia River is an important part of living in living in Richland. It is what keeps our lawn green, provides our electrical power, and much of the local entertainment. If you aren't into golfing or water sports, you have to drive a 100 miles or so to get to anything else. It also provides a means of hauling large shipments via barges. The tug boats that haul traffic up and down the Columbia are very special. They have to be able to push a load against a 10-15mph current. That takes a lot of power. The tugs and their loads leave large wakes behind them. We were water skiing one time and crossed the wake of a tug boat that was heading downstream. We were about a mile behind the tug and expected the waves to have damped down. When we hit the wake, I swore the boat pulling me disappeared in one of the troughs and I disappeared in one of the others. The remarkable part was I didn't kiss the water ski and was still skiing when I came out on the other side. There was a tremendous jolt to my system when I hit the bottom of the wake. 

The temperature of the river doesn't get above 68°F (20°C) until July. There is just too much water to heat up. The flow rate in the spring as the snow melts in the distant mountains is on the order of 450,000 - 650,000 ft³/sec. The river temperature basically follows the night time temperature and the water doesn't get warm until the night time termperature approachs 70°F. Until then, it isn't uncommon to see water skiers wearing wet-suits. Unfortunately, it doesn't take too long until the daytime temperature will peak around 110-120°F (43-47°C). The river feels pretty good then :).

This was difficult. If I centered the edge of the river properly, you would miss some detail from a lack of height. The view is just east of north from Howard Amon Park.

This shot was taken at the same spot as the one on the left but aiming to the southeast towards the new interstate bridge. A boat on the water is a typical sight around here. There was supposed to be a water skier in the photograph but they fell down just before I pressed the shutter release. You can just see their head in the wake. The boat was just where I wanted it and you can see the rope being dragged in the water.

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Last Modified on Monday, August 30, 2004

Copyright © by Kent B Stewart, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.