The Nature Pages

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~at OUTRIDER

	The Hanford Reach The Hanford Reach A Land Of Contrasts  by Susan Zwinger University of Arizona Press, 2005.
	A "reach" is a section of river or sea extended between two natural boundaries, such as the course of a river between two bends. The "Hanford Reach" is the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River between the McNary and Priest River dams in eastern Washington state.		Nothing is more aromatic than this intense smell of desert after a rain. Sage, mint, saltbush, butterbrush fill the nostrils with cleansing rosemary-like scents. The air smells like hope itself.
	Best known as the site of a secret nuclear weapons facility in the 1940s and 1950s, the reach and its surrounding shrub-steppe ecosystem were off-limits to human visitation or development for almost half a century until it was designated the Hanford Reach National Monument in 2000.
Search our selection channels between tof new, used and out-of-print books.	This book, published as part of the Desert Places Series by The University of Arizona Press, introduces readers to this mostly forgotten reach, a land of stunning contrasts and stark beauties, both frightening and somniferous .		Desert Places Series The Black Rock Desert Cedar Mesa Chiricahua Mountains Organ Pipe The Hanford Reach
	Washington nature writer Susan Zwimger teamed with biologist-cum-photographer Skip Smith to portray the bleached floodplains, the lush orchards, the critical wetlands, and the ominous nuclear reactors that comprise the place called The Hanford Reach.