Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, February 1, 2013
www.issaquahreporter.com
Trouble a brew? Walt Grisham, left, and Don Skelton, residents of University House in Issaquah, have known each other for 81 years, and now live five doors down the hall from each other. The two men lived in White Bluffs, Wash., a town that was condemned by the federal government to make way for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
216 acres on Squak Mountain sold to timber company BY LINDA BALL LBALL@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
LINDA BALL, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
WHEN WHITE BLUFFS DISAPPEARED
University House residents recall when government came and took their homes away THE WHOLE STORY
BY LINDA BALL LBALL@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
Don Skelton, 93, and Walt Grisham, 91 have breakfast and dinner together every day at University House in Issaquah. But more than their connection at the retirement home, they share a history that most people have never known. It was 1943 when the March 11 issue of the Kennewick Courier-Reporter carried the headline: “Richland, White Bluffs and Hanford area to be taken by massive war industry and mass meeting called at Richland to explain the war projects to residents.” However, nothing was really explained and residents were ordered out of their homes and off their lands. White Bluffs and Hanford were wiped off
Issaquah and University House residents Don Skelton and Walt Grisham experienced a piece of history very few know about in the eastern Washington town known as White Bluffs. For their whole tale, turn to page 7.
White Bluffs sar at the bend of the Columbia River, north of Richland. COURTESY, Google Maps the map to make way for the 640-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation. It would be years before anyone knew what was going on at the ultra-secret facility. First Bank of White Bluffs is all that remains
in White Bluffs; Hanford High School is all that remains of the farm town. Today, Oregon Public television will be at University House to film Skelton and Grisham for an upcoming documentary on the eradication of White Bluffs and Hanford, a little piece of sad and tragic Washington state history that for 70 years was a huge secret – except to those who lived it.
Fog drifts through thick moss covered trees, in a world not far from the rush of city life. It’s a world so close yet so far away – the Issaquah Alps. But pink ribbons that read “timber harvest boundary” indicate what soon may happen: 216 acres of forest land clear cut by a logging company. The land – five contiguous parcels formerly owned by the Issaquah Camping Club, which filed bankruptcy, and an adjoining larger triangular piece, approximately 100 acres, owned by American West Bank – was bought in late December 2012 by Erickson Logging, Inc. The concern, beyond the trees, is flooding. The land includes the headwater fork of May Creek, which, has been plagued for decades with increasing flooding as storms create greater flows and are compounded by increased silt filling in the creek channel. “The flooding has become worse over many decades,” said Dave Kappler, president of the Issaquah Alps Trail Club. Kappler said more runoff will bring more silt, which will clog up the creek. Even now, looking at lowlying homes, there is standing water on the level ground, because the creek has no vertical drop for several miles. Mary Celigoy owns the Red Barn, a horse-boarding farm in May Valley. It is a 65acre spread that her parents operated as a dairy farm in the 1940s. She currently has about 25 horses on the property. “May Creek goes right through the middle,” she said of her property. “Flooding has SEE SQUAK, 3