The Tri-Cities are three closely linked cities (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland) at the confluence of the Yakima, Snake, and Columbia Rivers in the U.S. state of Washington. Located in the Columbia Basin of Eastern Washington, the cities border one another, making the Tri-Cities seem like one uninterrupted mid-sized city. The three cities function as the center of the Tri-Cities metropolitan area, which consists of Benton and Franklin counties. The Tri-Cities urban area includes the city of West Richland, the census-designated places (CDP) of West Pasco and Finley, as well as the CDP of Burbank, despite the latter being located in Walla Walla County.

The official 2023 estimate of the Tri-Cities MSA population is 314,253, a more than 24% increase from 2010, while the combined population of the three principal cities themselves was 228,482 according to 2023 estimates from the United States Census Bureau.

Tri-Cities Airport is located in Pasco and provides the region with commercial and private air service. Pasco is the seat of Franklin County, while the other two cities are located in Benton County. In 2010, Kiplinger rated the Tri-Cities among the Top 10 best places to raise a family, and CNN/Money ranked the Tri-Cities one of the top 10 best bets for gains in housing value, due to its relatively stable economic conditions since the early 2000s.

Area history

Founding

Pasco was the first of the Tri-Cities to be incorporated, in 1891. Kennewick was incorporated in 1904, and Richland followed in 1910. West Richland—a suburb of Richland, as well as the fourth largest city in the metropolitan area—was founded by dissatisfied residents of Richland, who wished to be home owners rather than renters of government-owned houses, after the arrival of Hanford. Despite attempts by Richland to annex the community, they remained separate and eventually became incorporated in 1955.

Early history Pasco was the largest city in the Tri-Cities, mostly due to its railroad station. It also had the most land for easy irrigation and farming and was still the largest up until the founding of Hanford near Richland.

Farming was the basis of virtually every sector of the economy in the early years. Indeed, the area remained mostly rural well into the 1940s. It did not have a daily newspaper or radio station until the mid-1940s. Even today, agriculture is a big part of the Tri-Cities, Pasco in particular.

1940s–1970s After the founding of the Hanford Site in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, Richland became the largest city of the three overnight. Richland's Columbia High School adopted "Bombers" as its mascot (complete with mushroom cloud logo). In 1970, Kamiakin High School (in the neighboring city of Kennewick) was founded in response to the continued influx of people. The economy continued to grow, but not without some turbulence. Every time the Hanford facilities experienced reduced funding, thousands of people would suddenly become jobless. During this time, other employers slowly made their way into the area, but they too would often be forced to cut jobs in the bad times. Since the 1970s, Kennewick has had the greatest population of the three cities. The Columbia Center Mall opened in 1969 on land newly incorporated into Kennewick, drawing growth to western Kennewick and south Richland.

1980s–1990s

Completion of the Interstate 182 Bridge in 1984 made Pasco much more accessible, fueling the growth of that city. With the end of the Cold War, many in the area feared a shutdown of Hanford, followed by the Tri-Cities quickly becoming a ghost town. These fears were allayed after the United States Department of Energy switched the facility's purpose from the creation of nuclear weapons to the effective sealing and disposal of radioactive waste. During the 1990s, several major corporations entered the Tri-Cities, which helped to begin diversifying the economy apart from the Hanford sector. In 1995, a sixth public high school, Southridge High, was founded in south Kennewick.

2000s–present The 2000s saw continued rapid growth as the Hanford site hired hundreds of workers to help with the cleanup effort. Additionally, the Tri-Cities saw a large influx of retirees from various areas of the Northwest. During this time, and the corresponding nationwide housing boom, all three cities flourished and grew significantly. Pasco became the fastest growing city in Washington (in terms of both percent increase and number of new residents). In 2005, the Census Bureau reported that Pasco's population had surpassed Richland's for the first time since pre-Hanford days. Fueled by the boom, Chiawana High School was founded, and by 2019 had become the largest high school in the entire state.

Despite the economic recession of the late 2000s, the Tri-Cities area continued to maintain steady growth and a stable economic climate due in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which directed funding and jobs to the Hanford site and its various cleanup efforts.

Climate and geography The Tri-Cities are in a semi-arid climate, receiving an average of of precipitation every year. Winds periodically exceed when Chinook wind conditions exist. While there are an average 225 clear days every year, these are mainly between April 1 and November 1. Temperatures range from as low as in the winter (record low in December 1919) to as high as in the summer, and Richland reached during the 2021 Western North America heat wave. The region receives a yearly average of seven inches of snow but has received as much as 50 inches. Due to the semi-arid climate and subsequent large amounts of sand, a perpetual annoyance to residents is the amount of dust blown about by the frequent winds. Thanks to the aforementioned rivers, a large amount of cheap irrigation is available.

The Tri-Cities makes up the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern quadrant of Washington. The rain shadow of the Cascade mountain range to the west contributes to its semi-arid climate, which is far drier than the famously wet Western Washington. The region's climate results in a shrub-steppe ecosystem, which has 18 endemic plant species. Just west of Richland, the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve was established to study the unique plants and animals there; it is the largest tract of shrub-steppe ecosystem remaining in Washington.

Limited city lights and an absence of photopollution in the Tri-Cities area allow for naked-eye and telescopic astronomy. The Tri-City Astronomy Club holds star gazing events at the Hanford Observatory. Hiking locations, such as Badger Mountain, Candy Mountain and Jump Off Joe Butte, provide views of sunrises and sunsets, studies of celestial bodies and stellar astronomy. The aurora borealis (or northern lights) is sometimes visible nearby.

Education

Colleges and universities Higher education institutions in the Tri-Cities area include:

Washington State University Tri-Cities, a four-year branch campus of Washington State University located in Richland (2000 students). Columbia Basin College, a two-year institution which offers a four-year Bachelor of Applied Science program in Applied Management (8,000 students). The main campus is located in Pasco while a branch campus and a nursing school are located in Richland. Tri-Tech Skills Center, a smaller vocational school run by the Kennewick School District and located in Kennewick. Students from Pasco School District and Richland School District Can also apply to Tri-Tech. Charter College, located in Pasco offering technical and medical programs such as Medical Assisting, Dental Assisting and HVAC.

In 2005, the State of Washington approved the transition of the existing Washington State University branch campus in Richland from a two-year to a four-year campus. In the fall of 2007 the campus admitted its first undergraduate students. Offering a range of programs, the campus focuses on biotechnology, computer science, and engineering, due to the nearby Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Hanford Site. The university also offers a range of majors, including English, history, and other liberal arts and sciences.

Columbia Basin College also offers higher education courses for residents of the Tri-Cities, as well as the Columbia Basin from Mattawa, Washington, which is away, to Umatilla, Oregon, away.

Primary and secondary schools Each city provides its own schooling services through their respective school districts—Kennewick's, Pasco's, and Richland's.

Public high schools in the Kennewick School District include Kennewick High School, Kamiakin High School, Southridge High School. Public high schools in the Pasco School District are Pasco High School, Chiawana High School, Sageview High School and New Horizons High School. In the Richland School District, public high schools include Richland High School, Hanford High School, and River's Edge High School.

The area also contains two regional high schools, Tri-Tech and Delta High. Tri-Tech is a technical/vocational high school in the Kennewick School District that is attended by students from all over the Tri-Cities area. Delta High is a science and technology focused high school located in Pasco. It is sponsored by Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland's school districts, Battelle, Washington State University Tri-Cities, and Columbia Basin College.

There are also several private and faith-based schools in the area, including Tri-Cities Prep Highschool (Pasco), Kingspoint Christian School K–12 (Pasco), Tri-Cities Adventist School (Pasco), Liberty Christian School (Richland), Bethlehem Lutheran K–8 (Kennewick), and Calvary Christian School K–8 (Kennewick).

Industry

Early Hanford In the 1940s, the Hanford site employed a majority of residents. The United States government built a top-secret facility to produce and separate plutonium for nuclear weapons, and decided on an area just north of then-tiny Richland. The government built temporary quarters for the more than 45,000 workers and built permanent homes and infrastructure for other personnel in Richland. The city had an overnight population explosion, yet virtually no one knew what the purpose of Hanford was until the destruction of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, by an atomic weapon containing Hanford-produced plutonium. After World War II Hanford continued work on creating material for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. After the fall of the USSR in 1991, Hanford, the site of severe nuclear contamination, changed its mission from plutonium production to environmental cleanup and restoration.

Modern Hanford

The Hanford site is one of the largest cleanup projects in the United States, costing over $1.4 million per dayLisa Stiffler, "Hanford cleanup cost soars to $11.3 billion ... if Congress will pay", Seattle Pi, April 30, 2006, to turn over of nuclear waste into glass through a process called vitrification.Matthew Wald, , The New York Times, January 16, 1998 Vitrification is a proven technique in the disposal and long-term storage of nuclear waste or other hazardous wastes.M.I. Ojovan, W.E. Lee. Glassy wasteforms for nuclear waste immobilisation. Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 42 (4), 837–851 (2011). Original estimates were $2.8 billion over five years to clean up the waste,Keith Schneider, "Agreement Set For a Cleanup At Nuclear Site", New York Times, February 28, 1989 though estimates quickly grew in the early 1990s to $50 billion with a completion date of 30 years. As of 2021, the additional cost to complete cleanup is now projected to be between $300 and $640 billion with an estimated completion date of 2078. Over 18 percent of all jobs in the Benton Franklin County area are nuclear-related, research-related, or engineering.

Columbia Generating Station