May I share a book review with you all today? I just finished reading this book, Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River, by William Dietrich, 1995 (my book says that; Amazon description has later dates). Since all Washingtonians are in some fashion connected to this mighty river, I do recommend the book to you, all 400 pages.
Chapters in the book span the early history of mankind’s contact with the river, and how it was “in the beginning,” to how mankind tamed and changed the river to his liking. With easy to read prose, Dietrich explains how using the river changed settlers and settling over the decades. He describes the plight of the salmon, the poisoned ground of Hanford and how, thanks to dams, electricity from the river changed lives. The first chapters explain the geology of the entire area and how the river was ultimately formed.
Readers are introduced to “Suzy the Chinook” as she makes her migratory journey to the sea and back. Several pages detail why most do not make it. Why? Suzy’s body begins to change to adapt to salt water as she begins her down stream journey which used to take 20 to 30 days to reach the ocean and now, because of all the “lakes” behind the dams, the journey takes 2 to 3 months. See the problem?
Why did the government pick the Columbia River community of Hanford to build the nuclear reactors? The area was along the Columbia and plenty of cold water was needed. I quote: “B Reactor was deliberately built in what was considered the middle of nowhere in 1943: the sagebrush desert there was a remote location ensuring that if anything went wrong , a minimum number of people would be killed. Engineers looked for an empty ‘hazardous manufacturing area’ of at least 12 by 16 miles for plutonium production. The ‘gawd-awful’ waste in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains fit that bill.” One Army lieutenant was quoted to say, upon surveying the area, “It is a desolation where even the most hopeful can find nothing in its future prospects to cheer.”
Author Dietrich begins his book with this quote from Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist (born in 1937): “In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.“
If you want to “be taught” more about our magnificent and wonderful Columbia River, I do recommend this book as a great read. It is available on Amazon.