Our Northwest Energy

Grand Coulee Dam: A History Link Essay

This article is from the free online encyclopedia of Washington State History, History Link.

Grand Coulee Dam, hailed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" when it was completed in 1941, is as confounding to the human eye as an elephant might be to an ant. It girdles the Columbia River with 12 million cubic yards of concrete, stacked one mile wide and as tall as a 46-story building, backing up a 150-mile long reservoir, spinning out more kilowatts than any other dam in the United States. As gargantuan as it is, Grand Coulee is only part of the massive Columbia Basin Project, which includes four other dams, three storage lakes, and 2,300 miles of irrigation canals, snaking through half a million acres of desert.

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Lonnie Donegan Sings Grand Coulee Dam (1957)

The "King of Skiffle" was a musical hero to an adoring public. 

Enviros Recruit Ratepayers into Dam Fight

November 14, 2007

OREGON/Environmental groups and an Indian tribe are stepping up pressure on Portland-based Pacific Power. They're recruiting utility ratepayers into a fight over dam removal on the Klamath River.

Tom Banse reports.

Milestone Reached in Removal of Elwha Dams

September 17, 2007

WASHINGTON/Construction crews broke ground Friday afternoon on a new drinking water treatment plant on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It's a key step in the eventual removal of two dams on the Elwha River.

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Dam Safety

September 6, 2007

NORTHWEST/We have a lot of old dams. Roughly 25-hundred hold back waters here in the Northwest. Even the sturdiest structures made from concrete and wood don't hold up forever.

Correspondent Elizabeth Wynne Johnson reports on the status of dam safety and why some groups are raising a red flag.

Dam Removal on Elwha Creeps Closer

August 20, 2007

NORTHWEST/Removal of Marmot Dam on the Sandy River in Oregon is almost complete. But in Washington, two decades of efforts to remove dams on the Elwha River remain stalled. Still, as Tom Banse reports, there is some prospect of action.