Middle-saddle-mountains-sentinel-gap-looking-northwesterly-P4140091

Wahluke Slope is a geographic feature in

Grant Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom * Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama * Grant, Inyo County, ...

, Benton and Adams Counties of

Eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanf ...

. It is a broad, south-facing slope with a grade of about 8%, situated between the

Saddle Mountains The Saddle Mountains consists of an upfolded anticline ridge of basalt in Grant County of central Washington state. The ridge, reaching to 2,700 feet, terminates in the east south of Othello, Washington near the foot of the Drumheller Channel ...

and the Columbia River's

Hanford Reach The Hanford Reach is a free-flowing section of the Columbia River, around long, in eastern Washington state. It is named after a large northward bend in the river's otherwise southbound course. Hanford Reach is the only section of the Columbia i ...

. It has been described as "basically a 13-mile-wide gravel bar" created by the

Glacial Lake Missoula Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The lake measured about and contained about of water, half the volume of Lake Mic ...

floods at the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago. Much of the Slope, part of the

Hanford Nuclear Reservation The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW a ...

, was added to the

Saddle Mountain National Wildlife Refuge The Hanford Reach National Monument is a national monument in the U.S. state of Washington. It was created in 2000, mostly from the former security buffer surrounding the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The area has been untouched by development or ...

in 1999. Much of the remainder is used for

viniculture Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ra ...

Human use

Washington State Route 24 State Route 24 (SR 24) is a state highway in the south-central region of Washington, in the United States. It travels from Yakima to Othello, across a portion of the Columbia Plateau. The highway crosses the Columbia River on the Vern ...

extends from Mattawa, Washington on the western edge of the Slope nearly due east–west. Mattawa is the only population center on the Slope. There was once a town of Wahluke and a Wahluke ferry that crossed the Columbia to the north of White Bluffs. The land was acquired by the U.S. government for the

and the residents, including

Wanapum The Wanapum tribe of Native Americans formerly lived along the Columbia River from above Priest Rapids down to the mouth of the Snake River in what is now the US state of Washington. About 60 Wanapum still live near the present day site of Pri ...

people, ordered to leave in 1943. In two actions in 1953 and 1958 the Atomic Energy Commission returned almost to public use, mostly for agriculture with irrigation recently provided by

Columbia Basin Project The Columbia Basin Project (or CBP) in Central Washington, United States, is the irrigation network that the Grand Coulee Dam makes possible. It is the largest water reclamation project in the United States, supplying irrigation water to over of ...

sources. Settlement on the Slope by non-Native Americans has been termed as troubled, initially due to lack of water, then later by the Federal Government's land policies, resulting in "sporadic" growth of the town of Mattawa.

Nuclear concerns

The potential for release of nuclear contaminants into the Slope in the event of a nuclear accident, and the historical atmospheric releases in the ranges of many Curies per month, are of concern to modern authors on Hanford.

Viniculture

Viniculture is a major agricultural activity on the Slope, with nearly of vinyards.

Notes

References

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External links

*
Wahluke Slope map and discussion
at Wines Northwest {{Washington State hills and ridges Hills of Washington (state) Landforms of Adams County, Washington Landforms of Benton County, Washington Landforms of Grant County, Washington