Oct. 29, 2000: Reach board faces monumental task

Reach board faces monumental task

This story was published Oct. 29, 2000

By Mike Lee
Herald staff writer

Six months after Vice President Al Gore claimed the Hanford Reach as a national monument, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing to form an advisory board to shape the future of the controversial stretch of the Columbia River.

The agency has a monumental task - not only to plan and manage a national landmark but also to overcome hard feelings by many Mid-Columbians about the Clinton administration protecting the Reach by executive order rather than letting Congress do the job.

The planning effort alone is expected to cost more than $1 million.

"We think we have some nationally significant resources, and we want to do a first-class job of taking care of them," said Paula Call, outdoor recreation planner for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Opposition, however, lingers. Grant County, for instance, has sought legal advice on how to fight the monument designation.

Surprisingly, however, animosity seems to be abating in some quarters.

Benton County Commissioner Max Benitz Jr., while not ruling out a legal challenge to the national monument, said Friday that he has "a good working relationship" with Greg Hughes, project leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Richland.

"He assures us that there will be local representation in the development of the management plan," Benitz said. "That's what we have advocated for all the way."

The monument already has generated widespread interest in what is perhaps the healthiest stretch of the Columbia River, the free-flowing 51 miles above Richland. National monument advocates have long said a well-known federal designation would boost the region's appeal.

"We're seeing activity as a result of travel writers that are calling us and environmentalists that are calling us," said Kris Watkins, executive director of the Tri-City Visitor and Convention Bureau. "We are definitely seeing movement and inquiries about the national monument."

So is the Fish and Wildlife Service's Richland office.

"There's a lot of interest," Call said. "I have heard from many members of the general public and these are lands they are attached to."

The agency will hold several public hearings and meetings over the next few years to get input from a broader spectrum of residents. During the planning stages for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, public meetings were held in New York and California because the monument was considered a national treasure.

It's too early to tell if the Reach monument will get that type of exposure - but it's not too early to know what major issues will be. Those include public access, emergency and police services, irrigation and power rights of way, hunting and fishing rules, irrigation water seepage in the White Bluffs, elk management and boating rules.

A key part of the plan's formation will be done by an advisory committee. Call said Thursday the Richland office was recently given $90,000 to start the committee, but governing regulations have not yet been approved.

The panel is likely to include about 15 people, including state, county and tribal delegates along with representatives of local economic interests, recreation groups and conservationists.

"We don't want to exclude any user groups, but we feel that most of the user groups and the public could be represented on a committee that size," Call said. "This plan will make the determination of what future use will look like."

Mattawa Mayor Judy Esser wants to be on the panel, or at least have her town represented.

"We do care (about the Reach) because we are the closest community," she said. "We would like to know what's going on."

Once the board is formed, it will take about two years to create the management plan, agency officials estimate. "It will take them a while to come up to speed," Call said, producing an inch-thick binder of regulations. "They will have to roll up their sleeves and do some nighttime reading."

Much of the controversy surrounding the national monument designation was over how much power the public committee would have. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., pushed hard for a federal-state-county panel that would make decisions. However, he couldn't get his plan through Congress before President Clinton stepped in and declared the Reach and about 200,000 acres a national monument in June.

In a July letter to Benton County commissioners, Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., expressed concern that "local citizens will not be allowed meaningful involvement in future land use and management decisions."

The Fish and Wildlife Service plans to use the citizen's panel as an advisory board but it retains authority for final decisions. Its mandate is first to protect the Reach's natural resources, but it also intends to provide public access and interpretation of the region's culture, history and natural features.

To do all that, however, the monument will need money - and money might be hard to get for an out-of-the-way monument that riled Republicans. Clinton's summer of monument-creating executive orders won't likely be forgotten soon by GOP faithful, some of whom tried to block money for "Clinton monuments" in this year's budget.

That effort failed. In fact, Gorton's staff said he included a "substantial" increase in the Fish and Wildlife Service's general management account when he wrote the Interior Department spending bill. It was not linked to monument planning.

Still, conservation leaders are wary. "I think the budget is going to be very austere for now. That's just politics," said Rick Leaumont, a longtime supporter of federal protection for the Reach.

"That's something environmentalists have to realize we are going to have to do forever - we are ... going to have to lobby for money to take care of the resources we want to protect," he said.

No doubt, the Reach planning process will generate plenty of other causes as multiple groups look to protect their interests.

"I know there are hard feelings about it," said Watkins. "But the important thing is that ... it has been declared a national monument, and I think we as a community need to move on, move forward and make the best of the situation."

The visitors bureau is teaming with Three Rivers Community Foundation, a new nonprofit organization, to apply for a $250,000 federal grant to study economic opportunities associated with the monument. The money is in a spending bill on the president's desk.

"The community has a lot to benefit from as a result of a well-organized plan," Watkins said. "But we certainly want to make sure all of the stakeholders are at the table."