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Monument Status Recommended for Hanford Reach by Les Blumenthal, Herald Washington, D.C., bureau Tri-City Herald, June 1, 2000

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt recommended Wednesday that the Hanford Reach be designated a national monument, preserving about 200,000 acres of undeveloped federal lands along the Columbia River.

The White House is expected to give quick approval.

The designation would include almost half of the Department of Energy's Hanford nuclear reservation, which the Interior Department described as the largest remnant of the "shrub-steppe ecosystem" that once covered much of the Columbia River Basin.

The Hanford Reach is one of four areas Babbitt recommended be established as national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906. His decision came little more than two weeks after he floated the 51-mile stretch of river upstream of Richland.

"These are priceless natural landscapes that have somehow remained almost untouched by exploitation, development and urban sprawl," Babbitt said in a statement. "Protection of several of these areas, in one form or another, has been discussed for years, but no action has been taken. We may not have another chance before they are lost ..."

The designation of the Reach has been on a fast track, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she expected President Clinton to act quickly on the recommendation.

"I have talked to the president about this in the past four or five days, and I expect him to act soon," said Murray, who has been fighting for federal protection of the Reach for more than seven years.

But longtime Republican opponents of the federal designation were livid.

"In one fell swoop, this administration is destroying years of negotiations, shutting out the concerns of local people and blowing any chance of protecting the Reach in a manner that accommodates the needs of all parties," Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington said in a statement.

Praising the announcement from Portugal, where he was meeting with European Union ministers, President Clinton said each of the areas recommended by Babbitt represents "an exceptional, irreplaceable piece of America's natural and cultural heritage."

Washington Gov. Gary Locke endorsed Babbitt's recommendation, noting Congress has failed to act to protect the Reach, which he called "a snapshot of an earlier time."

Locke also urged Clinton to give local citizens and governments a role in helping manage the monument. The method of providing local input into management of the Reach has been the key sticking point in preservation talks over the past several years.

Recent use of the Antiquities Act by the president has sparked considerable opposition in Congress. House Republicans have attached a provision to a spending bill that would block creation of any additional monuments and bar funding for the most recently created ones. Clinton has threatened a veto.

The Antiquities Act allows a president to create national monuments involving areas of histo