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I have an offer from the labs in Richland, WA and considering it. I am now living in Ann Arbor, MI.
Questions:
1- The area seems remote (more than 3 hours drive to Portland or Seattle). Is there a closer city to which one can drive and get cultural and social activities?
2- If there are not many fun activities around then what is a single young guy to do in Richland for fun? Do you fly to Portland for example every now and then? Is there a nice and not too far university scene? Looking online it seems all you guys can do is go to work and come from work. Are you happy with your life there?
3- Do you worry about pollution from the Hanford site? Where is the best place to live with this in consideration (upwind upstream? where would that be?)
Please be tolerant of my questions and try to help me!
I would appreciate any input especially from young engineers working in the labs and hope for some advice.
Thanks!
JD.
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 01-22-2009 at 11:26 AM..
Reason: Typo...
I have an offer from the labs in Richland, WA and considering it. I am now living in Ann Arbor, MI.
Questions:
1- The area seems remote (more than 3 hours drive to Portland or Seattle). Is there a closer city to which one can drive and get cultural and social activities?
2- If there are not many fun activities around then what is a single young guy to do in Richland for fun? Do you fly to Portland for example every now and then? Is there a nice and not too far university scene? Looking online it seems all you guys can do is go to work and come from work. Are you happy with your life there?
3- Do you worry about pollution from the Hanford site? Where is the best place to live with this in consideration (upwind upstream? where would that be?)
Please be tolerant of my questions and try to help me!
I would appreciate any input especially from young engineers working in the labs and hope for some advice.
That's funny. I know another Jason who just graduated from Michigan and lives in Richland. To your questions:
1) Not really. Spokane to a degree, but it's not that much nearer than Seattle or Portland, and it's not as big.
2) Very little, unless you're LDS (in which case the Church will keep you busy with callings) or you drink (in which case you can take your pick of two raucously mediocre bars).
3) I don't think most people worry much about it. I think most people here are so dialed in to the mentality that 'Hanford = Jobs' that they have absolutely no desire to see the contamination cleaned up. The day it's ever fully cleaned up is the day the site reduces to irrelevancy.
So when you ask about Hanford pollution, people do worry about it: they worry that someone will screw up and actually move forward cleaning it up, putting everyone out of work. That's the sum total of the local thinking on Hanford and nuclear energy: nukes mean Hanford jobs, nukes good. Hanford jobs good, less Hanford jobs bad, all things that mean Hanford jobs good. Whether a idea is safe, cost-effective or even makes any sense does not enter the equation. The public good does not enter the equation. When it comes to Hanford, Tri-Citians view the world throw a cardboard wrapping paper tube. Longtime residents may often not know any other way to view the world.
My own favorite stance: tell them I'm pro-nuclear, but anywhere but here, on the grounds that the last people I want in charge of anything nuclear would be Hanford managers with their Franklin Planners and their PR flacks and their numerous overpaid, underworked employees and their blaming of everything wrong on 'DOE and unions.'
Anyway, while there are things to do in Richland, you wouldn't want to do them, and most of what you would want to do, they don't have. Short version.
Thanks for your reply. I haven't decided to accept the offer yet. I am not sure what "pro nuclear" is. I am against making nuclear weapons and against polluting the environment. My question is related to whether there is significant health risk on people living today in that area, and possibly myself and future family if i move there.
Church is not my idea of fun, I am actually religiously atheist. Two bars!? Two?!
Any theatre houses? (not movie theatres)
So what do the liberal young and single do there? Is there a climbing gym? Are there places for Salsa dancing for example? Other than my own possible move, I am really curious. How can the lab attract young smart professionals that need a balanced personal life if not many options are available? I am interested in hearing from someone in a situation similar to mine. Do you just consider this as a purely money and career starting opportunity and tough it out there? But then what do you do on the weekends? really?! Go to work some more?
Thanks for your reply. I haven't decided to accept the offer yet. I am not sure what "pro nuclear" is. I am against making nuclear weapons and against polluting the environment. My question is related to whether there is significant health risk on people living today in that area, and possibly myself and future family if i move there.
Church is not my idea of fun, I am actually religiously atheist. Two bars!? Two?!
Any theatre houses? (not movie theatres)
So what do the liberal yougn and single do there? Other than my own possible move, I am really curious.
Thanks again for your response!
Support or opposition for nuclear anything (making weapons, energy, research, fuel cores, anything that would create Hanford work) is the pro- vs. anti-nuclear issue here. Seattle's against all of it, Tri-Cities is for all of it. The standard TC (especially Richland) reaction to nega-nuke views is a mumbled sentence that uses the words 'junk science' and 'Seattle treehuggers' and 'anti-nuke kooks' at some point. The content of the sentence doesn't matter; they just make sure they say the code words.
I don't think the health risk is significant, but I sure as hell don't trust the current Hanford staffing to keep that risk down. In the past, Hanford has affected the public health--Google 'Hanford downwinders' to learn more. Richland is, however a good place to raise a family, because it might be hard for your kids to find trouble to get into.
I think there is one theatre house. Not sure if it's still open or not. There's the Children's Theatre, though, how about that? Because it's all about the precious snowflakes! There's also the Spudnut Shop, which along with Bomber football might just be the heart and soul of Richland. Epicentre of potato flour culture! You have to consider that nearly all of Richland was built in the mid-40s for the war, so the only thing older than 1942 might be a long-lived sagebrush someone overlooked.
There are more than two bars, but there are two everyone knows about. Compared to the likely raucousness of a major university's environs, you would feel like the whole town was on valium in Richland. (Probably it is.) If you play baseball, we have an adult baseball league. I'm an official scorer in it. That's something to do, in season.
Liberal young and single? For them to have something to do, we'd have to have some to begin with. They move away when they graduate, and they rarely return. Atheist? We have a couple of them too, somewhere. Wait... I know one! A physicist out at Battelle. And his dad, same occupation! So that's two.
Obviously, in some cases, I'm exaggerating and parodying, but all with a real note of seriousness. This is simply a very quiet place, great when you have kids or are over 40 and just want peace (I'm the latter). Sucks to be 23 and young and left-wing and atheist and anti-nuke. In fact, for that combination it's about as vast an amount of suck as you could possibly concoct with a healthy imagination. Now I'm dead leveling with you. No joke.
Myself, I love the place (Tri-Cities, not Richland in particular). But I'm 45, no kids, work from home, hate loud bars, hate night life, don't need a big social circle, and don't give a rip what anyone thinks of my facial hair, my politics or my religion (neither of which has the good Hanfordkeeping Seal of Approval). I love the things about the TC that deserve love and heap scorn on those deserving scorn. Short of going back to Kansas, this is an ideal place for me. And if I let my heels slip in the sand, my wife will drag me to Anchorage, so I'm staying braced.
Good luck finding a good place to settle. Richland would be worth tolerating if they throw enough money at you to let you pay off your student loans and start building some home equity. Just don't expect to find anyone else much like you.
Someone else please reply, ideally someone who thinks I'm full of baloney, so this guy can get another perspective.
Someone else please reply, ideally someone who thinks I'm full of baloney, so this guy can get another perspective.
I think you are pretty close to spot on, although I think the liberal/atheist type population is a little larger than you let on. But then again, I live and work in North Richland and am surrounded by Battelle scientist types.
For me, being young-ish and having a young family, I think this is a great area. It's safe, plenty of parks for the family, low housing costs and decent wages if you work a Hanford related job. But if I put myself in Jason's position, back when I was just out of grad school, single, coming from a thriving liberal college town (Amherst, MA in my case), there would be a bit of culture shock.
I get the picture and it's not pretty. I wonder if they would let me work from home and live in Seattle or Portland (I know it's unlikely). Maybe I can fly to one of these cities every weekend? Otherwise I cannot just be alive, I want to live.
Probably it's the marriage thing... if I were married it would be easier. Maybe I can move to Richland, keep flying to Portland or Seattle on the weekends till I meet a good enough girl, propose and marry right away, and bring her back to Richland to live with me happily ever after making money working in the lab. We will hope that our future kids wont grow up with a much more right-leaning ideology than their parents', that is if they even get born not deformed from the local radioactive environmental effects first or the future woman and I don't become a statistic and get a divorce after two years.... oh then she would take half my money that I so dearly accumulated working in such a cut-off, city.
I will see what my other employment options are and try to stall replying right away to the lab. But in this economy, it's not that promising. I will also wait for more input.
You could also create your own things to do. These days that's a lost art. And the Internet makes it an order of magnitude easier to seek out like interests and minds. But as for ready-made entertainment, there isn't that much. You would have to get creative, and take full advantage of what is here.
For example, every D&D group I've played with except one was composed purely of people new to the area and finding it impossible to find existing groups, due to the cliquishness of the local situation. Point being, I found them. Or helped to found them. There wasn't a synagogue until the past decade, for example, but enough local Jews cared enough to make it happen. The baseball team I played with was a startup team; the guy wanted to play baseball, and figured the best way was to start a team.
If nothing else, at least if you take the job you'll know what you are getting into, and the shock will be less.
I would put aside worries about dying from ingesting nuclear waste, though. We have between 160K and 220K people in the area, depending on who you ask and where you draw the borders. We aren't all dying of radiation poisoning, nor do we all have hazmat gear immediately at hand. It is important to remember that 'the site' or 'the area', as locals call it, is enormous; might be close to the size of Rhode Island. A lot of the major nuclear stuff was fairly far up north, if memory serves.
You need to visit this area yourself to get a better opinion. j_k_k is not describing the Tri-Cities, he is describing his life in the Tri-Cities.
Spokane is a very easy drive. It's relatively flat. Portland is a pretty easy drive as well. Seattle requires you to travel Snoqualmie Pass which can be tricky in the winter. Seattle is a short 45-50 minute flight but the prices can be insane. I have quite a few friends in all three cities and I like to travel to each of them a few times a year.
I would consider myself pro-nuclear. Not just in this area but in the world. Nuclear energy. I do not support nuclear weapons. The only people I know of who worry about nuclear contamination do not live here and most have never even been here at all.
We have quite a bit of bars and clubs. I am not sure which two j_k_k was referring to.
I am liberal and single and many of my friends are as well. I am also athiest.
During the summer I spend a lot of time out on the river. I am very content just floating down the river, listening to music and drinking a few beers. On the weekends I like to go camping. During the winter we have quite a few ski resorts that are a short drive.
I found this area to be extremely liberal after I moved here from Texas... haha
You need to visit this area yourself to get a better opinion. j_k_k is not describing the Tri-Cities, he is describing his life in the Tri-Cities.
The OP was specifically asking about Richland. I don't live in Richland, but like anyone who lives here I know plenty of people who do and have been there fairly often. When I'm there in the evening, except for Jackson's and the Townie Crier, the place is pretty dead. I probably should have mentioned Atomic Ale, which has reasonably good microbrew and pizza but I don't think is really a nightspot type of bar.
Perhaps the OP will take the job, and then post back and let us know firsthand.
Jason,
I grew up (ok aged) in Richland. In the past 20 years I've lived 3 years in Seattle, 4 years in Orange County, so I can compare.
If you are looking at the sum of your activity requirements to be bars, nightclubs as it seems others here have posted about, well it's certainly not Seattle or OC. But I have a good time when I go out on a weekend and know I won't find much on a Tuesday. So what?
As to the dearth of other activities, that's complete garbage.
Outdoor recreation here has long-existing and active recreational clubs for running, cycling, motorcycling, alpine climbing, snow skiing, baseball, softball, basketball, bass fishing, elk hunting, etc. Lot's of tournaments going on. And lots of golf courses, easy to pro level. The clubs have different levels of skill and everyone I've ever dealt with is happy to see new people.
Some people will say it's a cultural wasteland. Unless you get off your butt and go see the Light Opera, the Symphony, the Players, The East Opera, the tons of very good music groups playing all over the area (try the wineries) of a variety of genre's, the Allied Arts and their sidewalk show, a nationally recognized ballet company here that attracts world-class guest dancers for their performances (some of whom are alumni of the Academy) and on and on. We have Broadway touring companies perform here and big name acts (Disturbed in a few days, Wrestlemania, LeAnn Rhimes on Jan. 31st). Hey, I saw a killer show with Jeff Dunham a few weeks ago.
For pro sports we've a WHL hockey club that has sent numerous top players to the NHL (many of these players here are already drafted) who's alumni include Stu Barnes & Olie Kolzig who live here in the off season and now own the team. We have a beautiful baseball stadium hosting a Class A farm club of the Rockies. An Arena2 pro football team is based here.
On the weekends during the spring, summer and fall you can tour dozens and dozens of world class wineries in the Columbia Valley, Walla Walla and Yakima.
We have over 300 days a year of sun. During the summer I live on the boat. We have three different rivers to play on- the Columbia, Snake and Yakima. I'll go out at 10 and tie up with friends, do a little boarding, and at five we'll dock at Cedars and sit on the deck for rum barrels. During the winter, you can get up on Saturday morning, head out the door at 7am and be skiing or snow boarding by 8:30. There are numerous ski areas from within 1+ hour to 3.
If you want to cruise to the big city for the weekend, you can be in either Seattle or Portland within about 3 hours.
So yeah, like j_k_k said "But as for ready-made entertainment, there isn't that much."
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Richland's livability
