HeiBlog

The documentary Arid Lands was brought to my attention via the videoblog Minnesota Stories. Produced by Side Long Films in Minneapolis, it chronicles the growth of the Tri-cities region starting from just before the founding of the Hanford site to the present day.

I got a chance to see a screening at the 1st annual Mount Rainier Independent Film Festival. Had I not already planned to spend the weekend in Seattle and bought tickets to two concerts I would have spend my time here. They had a wonderful set of films lined up along with workshops and discussion sessions. Arid Lands was in the Mineral Function Center, a retired elementary school making for a very quaint venue. There were only about 10 people in the audience (last day crowd). At the end, a woman who was interviewed in the film held a Q&A. I chatted with her for a while and then ended up chatting with an old coot about the town of Mineral while I was pumping gas.

I’ve lived in Tri-cities for about 6 months now and have become interested in the culture of the area. I use the term “culture” to mean the history or the area and how people live their lives, not relating to the “arts” definition of culture. This area just doesn’t have the population base to have a cultural center designation that a city like Seattle or Boston would. The documentary addressed many of the issues that I have observed here or have discussed with those who have grown up here.

Going back to the early 40s there were basically two groups of people in the area, farmers and native peoples (Indians, First People, Native Americans you pick your favorite term). Then the Federal Government decided that they wanted to manufacture plutonium here. That started the rush of people and sparked the transformation of the area. Without Hanford the Tri-cities would be like any number of the other agriculture-based communities in the area, Moses Lakes, Prosner, Benton City etc.

Fast forward to today and you still have a community where a large portion of the economy is seeded by federal money and programs. Growth is still strong. The housing market is still a growth market (all be it slower than a few years ago). But, we are sitting about a 30 minute drive from one of the worst waste sites in the world. Add to that the fact that all of this is happening in a unique arid ecosystem, where you need strict control of the water to do anything “productive” with the land, and you have a fascinating combination of issues and forces converging in the region.

The film does an excellent job of balancing and contrasting these different sectors by interviewing representative people who live in the region. The talk to a fisherman, some geologists, an ecologist who works for the state, a Hanford biologist, original residents of the Hanford area, an elder member of the Yakima nation, a historian … you get the idea. All of these people have a different take on what happened and what the future holds. The common vain is that damage has been done and it has to be corrected. Most of them agreed that the Tri-cities had to make changes if it wanted to stay prosperous. If the water issue gets out of control and Hanford shuts down before there are other industries to replace it this area is sunk.