Work to start to create jobs on former Hanford land

For the first time since 1998, the Department of Energy has returned land it seized for the Manhattan Project back to the Tri-Cities community.

Community leaders celebrated the transfer of 1,641 acres of land just north of Richland for economic development at a gathering Thursday morning in Kennewick.

It was the culmination of five years of work to get the land released. But now the local government agencies and the Tri-City Development Council must start the work of putting the land to use to create jobs to replace some of those that will be lost as portions of cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation are completed.

The land was seized in 1943 from a patchwork of private and government owners for the secret project to make plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, helping end World War II.

Tribes also used Hanford land and had treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather there. DOE and the tribes worked out a memorandum of agreement related to the transfer.

The Yakamas, Umatillas, Nez Perce and Wanapum will have access to the land before it is industrialized and an access agreement will be developed between the tribes and the new landowners. Any Native American archaeological material, artifacts or buried human remains that are found will be returned to the tribes.

DOE also has agreed to develop a native revegetation plan outside the acreage to be transferred in keeping with the plants that tribes have traditionally gathered. DOE also will develop and implement a rehabilitation plan for a culturally significant area near the land to be transferred.

The land includes about eight tracts owned by the federal government, Benton County or the state of Washington in 1943. But TRIDEC also lists nine other landowners, including an investment company, the Richland Irrigation District, and individuals like Luella Dougherty, Daisy Putnam and Fred Gohres.

TRIDEC, designated by DOE as the community reuse agency for unneeded Hanford property, plans to turn most of the transferred land over to the Port of Benton and the city of Richland before the end of the year.

“They have a positive track record in developing industrial property,” said Carl Adrian, TRIDEC president.

TRIDEC requested acreage in a square shape to the north and west of the intersection of Horn Rapids Road and Stevens Drive. The request was spurred by DOE discussions about reducing the size of its nuclear cleanup sites as cleanup advanced, possibly by converting them into clean energy industrial parks.

What TRIDEC received is an irregularly shaped piece of property, still to the north and west of the Horn Rapids and Stevens intersection, but with pieces carved out for cleanup, safety or other concerns. The transferred section was not used directly for Hanford work to produce plutonium.

Some of the land held back by DOE will be used to supply fill soil for cleanup excavations just to the east in the Hanford 300 Area. About 75 acres on Horn Rapids Road are excluded because the section once was used as a Hanford landfill for construction material. Another nearby area, the site of an early homestead, may have some cultural or historical significance.

To the west of the requested property is a Hanford firing range. That has excluded 352 acres for safety and because of contamination from lead bullets. To the north along Stevens Drive is land that’s part of a buffer around continuing work in the Hanford 300 Area.

TRIDEC and its local government partners may have to reconsider the original vision of using one 900-acre parcel as a megasite to attract a large manufacturer or energy producer, Adrian said.

However, the city of Richland and Port of Benton have agreed to combine their new adjoining parcels along Horn Rapids Road to create a large site if they have interest from industry.

One of the next steps will be development of a master plan, with Richland, the port and Benton County working together and marketing the land to industry.

The agencies also will work with the tribes that have treaty rights at Hanford to understand historical and cultural issues, said Diahann Howard, the Port of Benton's director of economic development and governmental affairs.

TRIDEC will continue discussions with two companies that are interested in solar production on 300 acres of land, likely on the northern part of the tract.

While a solar farm will not create large numbers of jobs, it could add an attractive green power option for a manufacturer, Howard said. It also could be used for partnerships with researchers who are working on grid reliability and energy storage projects at nearby Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Some of the sections of land carved out by DOE could eventually be transferred for development. Richland, for example, initially will receive about 500 acres, but about 450 acres might later be added to that, including land near the firing range and the old homestead area.

The land being transferred is well positioned for development, with nearby roads, railroads, water and other utility service.

But the cost to fully industrialize it is expected to be about $40,000 an acre, possibly more because of the land’s unusual configuration, Adrian said. He based that estimate on development of land just to the south of Horn Rapids Road.

One of the final acts of former Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., before he retired at the end of 2014 was to get legislation passed requiring DOE to transfer the land by Sept. 30, 2015. His legislation, inserted into a military spending bill, passed with the help of Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash.

It requires that any proceeds from selling the land to industry be used for the land’s economic redevelopment.

The Port of Benton previously has received five major transfers of Hanford land, said port Commissioner Robert Larson. They include what’s now the Richland airport, 16 miles of railroad from Kennewick to Hanford, the former Army camp extending to the Columbia River and more than 800 acres plus buildings along Stevens Drive in Richland.

The port calculates that the previous transfers resulted in 4,000 jobs.

The transfer of the 1,641 acres this week also will add to the local tax base and increase property values in north Richland, said Phillip Lemley, Richland mayor pro tem.

The large parcel of undeveloped land will allow the Tri-City area to “compete in niche industries for research, manufacturing and jobs that may be uncommon or unknown to us as we continue to diversify our Tri-Cities economy,” said Benton County Commissioner Jim Beaver.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, elected to replace Hastings, said in a speech on the House floor Thursday that he will work to have more land released from Hanford.

“As Hanford’s cleanup mission is completed, this unneeded federal land should continue to be returned to the local community for the goals of conservation, preservation, public access and economic development to be achieved,” he said.

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 10:14 PM with the headline "Work to start to create jobs on former Hanford land."