Columbia Basin Project

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The area of ​​the Columbia Basin Project

The Columbia Basin Project (or CBP ) in central Washington state is the irrigation network made possible by the Grand Coulee Dam . This is the largest project in the United States to use water to reclaim land by providing irrigation for 670,000 acres (2,711 km²) of the 1,100,000 acres (4,452 km²) project area; originally the entire project area was to be irrigated. The land is still classified as irrigable and can be included by extending the system. Water pumped from the Columbia River is channeled through 331 mi (533 km) long main canals and stored in numerous reservoirs, diverted from there into 1,339 mi (2,155 km) secondary canals, and finally distributed over 3,500 mi (5,633 km) drainages and ditches. The Grand Coulee Dam, its hydroelectric power station and various other parts of the project are operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation . There are three irrigation districts in the project area (the Quincy-Columbia Basin Irrigation District, the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District, and the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District) that maintain additional local facilities.

history

The Bureau of Reclamation was formed in 1902 to make the arid western states agricultural. The Columbia Plateau in central Washington was one of the primary goals - a desert with fertile loess soils and the Columbia River flowing through it.

Competing groups promoted various irrigation projects; a group from Spokane wanted a from Lake Pend Oreille leading down 134 mi (216 km) long canal while a group also Wenatchee (further south) wanted to build a large dam on the Columbia River, which water in the nearby Grand Coulee should pump, a then dry and river terrace criss-crossed by many canyons.

After thirteen years of discussion, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the dam project and released funds from the National Industrial Recovery Act . (The project was later specifically approved by the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1935 and again by the Columbia Basin Project Act of 1943, the latter placing it under the Reclamation Project Act of 1939.) Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam began in 1933 and was completed in 1942 completed. Its primary purpose of providing water for irrigation was postponed during World War II in favor of generating electrical energy that was used for wartime purposes. Additional hydropower capacity was made available in the 1970s. The reservoir created on the Columbia River was named in honor of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake . The reservoir used to provide water for irrigation was called Banks Lake .

After the Second World War, the project experienced a number of setbacks. The irrigation systems began to fill up between 1948 and 1952, but the costs exploded, so a plan was drawn up to share the costs with the people who benefited from the water over time and thus refinance the project; this plan has been revised several times and has become a permanent subsidy. In addition, the original vision of a large-scale social project to settle farmers on small lands failed. The farm areas, initially limited in size, grew larger and soon became agro-industrial areas.

The original plan was for a federal agency similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority to manage the entire system. Instead, the conflicts between the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Department of Agriculture thwarted plans by both agencies to set up small farms in the project area; instead, larger companies came into being.

The determination to irrigate the entire project area (1,100,000 acres (4,452 km²)) waned in the 1960s. The total estimated cost of completing the project had doubled between 1940 and 1964. It became clear that the government investment could not be refinanced and that the benefits of the project had been unevenly distributed by favoring larger firms. This and more dampened the enthusiasm for the project, but the exact motives behind the decision to stop the project construction around halfway are unknown.

geology

The Drumheller Channels , 10 miles (16 km) south of the Potholes Reservoir , are an example of Channeled Scablands

The catchment area of the Columbia River in central Washington is fertile because of its loess soils, but large parts of it are almost a desert with mean annual precipitation below 254 millimeters. The area is characterized by large deposits of flood basalts that are thousands of feet thick and were deposited over a period of approximately eleven million years in the Miocene . These flood basalts come to the surface in some places, while in others they are covered by thick layers of loess.

During the last Ice Age, glaciers shaped the landscape of the Columbia River Plateau . Ice blocked the Columbia River near the north end of the Grand Coulee , creating glacial lakes Columbia and Spokane. The Ice Age glaciers also formed Lake Missoula in what is now Montana . The erosion allowed Ice Age Lake Columbia to drain into what would become the Grand Coulee, which was fully formed when Ice Age Lake Missoula and Lake Columbia abruptly drained. This event is one of several known as the Missoula Floods . Unique erosion structures called Channeled Scablands are the result of these floods.

Project components

Grand Coulee Dam and Lake Roosevelt

  • Grand Coulee Dam (1950)
    • Right (northern) hydropower plant
    • Left (southern) hydropower plant
    • A third hydropower plant was built in 1974 on a north wing of the dam, north of the Right Power Plant. This additional building expanded the energy generation to 300%.
  • Lake Roosevelt
  • The Grand Coulee Dam pumping station (1953) consists of twelve pump-turbines and two reversible pump-turbine units. The reversible units are used to pump water from Lake Roosevelt to Banks Lake, from where it can either be directed to the Columbia Basin irrigation system or returned to Lake Roosevelt to provide additional power to the grid.

Feeder Canal, North Dam and Dry Falls Dam, Banks Lake

  • The Banks Lake (1951) is an artificial pool in Grand Coulee . It is 27 mi (43 km) long and 1 mi (2 km) ... 3 mi (5 km) wide. The Grand Coulee has nearly vertical rock walls up to 600 ft (183 m) in height.
    The North Dam on Banks Lake with the Feeder Canal
    • The North Dam near the town of Grand Coulee has a maximum height of 145 ft (44 m) and a crown length of 1,400 ft (427 m).
    • The Dry Falls Dam or South Dam near Coulee City has a maximum height of 123 ft (37 m) and a crown length of 8,880 ft (2,707 m). The geographic height of both dam tops is 1,580 ft (482 m). The water reaches Banks Lake via the Feeder Canal from the pumping station. Banks Lake's outflow is the Main Canal near Coulee City. That's near the east wall of Dry Falls Dam. Banks Lake serves as a compensation reservoir for storing water for irrigation purposes and can also be used to generate energy.
  • The Feeder Canal (1951) connects the North Dam at the north end of Banks Lake with the outlets of the Grand Coulee Pump / Hydroelectric Plant. It is 1.6 mi (2.6 km) long and carries the water in an open concrete channel and twin concrete pipe.
  • The Main Canal (1951) is 8.3 mi (13.4 km) long, including 2.4 mi (3.9 km) sections in the lake.
  • The Bacon Tunnel and Pumping Station (1950) is a 1,037.5 ft (316 m) long sealed suction pipe under the east extension of the Dry Falls Dam.
    Aerial view of the Pinto Dam.
  • Billy Clapp Lake ( Pinto Dam - a structure filled with earth and rocks) (1951) (also known as Long Lake Dam) is located at the southern end of Long Lake Coulee. The reservoir is 6 mi (10 km) long and 0.5 mi (0.8 km) wide.
  • Potholes Reservoir

Irrigation of the Columbia Basin

When it was built, the Grand Coulee Dam was the largest dam in the world; however, it was only part of the irrigation project. More dams were built at the north and south ends of the Grand Coulee, the dry canyon south of the Grand Coulee Dam, to fill the river terrace (English "coulee") with water pumped from the Columbia River. The resulting reservoir, Banks Lake , is approximately 30 mi (48 km) long. Banks Lake serves as the initial water reservoir in the CBP. Additional canals, pumping stations and reservoirs have been built south of Banks Lake and extend 100 mi (161 km). Water is carried up from Lake Roosevelt over 280 ft (85 m) to fill the extensive network.

The total runoff of the Columbia, which is derived for the CBP on the Grand Coulee, varies somewhat from year to year and is currently around 3.7 billion cubic meters. That's about 3.8 percent of the average annual runoff measured at the Grand Coulee Dam. This amount is greater than the combined annual outflows of the nearby Yakima, Wenatchee, and Okanagan Rivers. There are plans to double the area of ​​irrigated land in the next few decades, as the tour guides at the dam report. However, the Bureau of Reclamation website does not report any further plans to expand the 671,000 acres (2,715 km²) of irrigated land to the originally planned area of ​​1,100,000 acres (4,452 km²).

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, interest grew in completing the 1,100,000 acres (4,452 km²) area of ​​the Columbia Basin Project. One reason for the new interest is the exhaustion of the Odessa aquifer. The agricultural users within the CBP limits but outside the previously irrigated area have used this aquifer for irrigation for decades.

Unwanted consequences

The use of hydropower was not the primary goal of the project, but during the World War II the demand for electrical energy in the region rose sharply. The Hanford Site was being built just south of the project area and aluminum smelters converged in the Columbia Basin. A new power plant was built on Grand Coulee Dam from the late 1960s and tripled the amount of energy generated. Part of the dam had to be expanded and rebuilt to make room for the new generators. Electric energy is now exported to Canada and south to San Diego .

There are a number of facts related to the runoff of water for irrigation. The project region receives around 150… 250 mm of precipitation annually, while the supply of water for irrigation is equivalent to around 1,000… 1,300 millimeters. The original plans did not sufficiently target the necessary water levels and drains. In some cases, the results are beneficial. Some lakes offer recreational opportunities and a habitat for fish and game. In other cases, agrochemicals in the runoff create undesirable environmental inputs.

Environmental influences

One environmental impact was the reduction in the fish population above the dams. The majority of the fish species in the Columbia Basin are migratory fish such as salmon, sturgeon, and steelhead trout . These migratory fish are often damaged or completely hindered when trying to pass the narrow passages or the turbines on the dams. In addition to the physical barriers that the dams create, the reduced speed and course changes lead to increases in water temperatures, changes in oxygen levels and changed conditions in the river bed. These altered conditions can cause stress or death in both migratory and stationary fish. The decimation of migratory fish above the Grand Coulee Dam would affect traditional fishing by the Indians in the area, who once adapted their lives to salmon.

The environmental impact of the Columbia Basin Project has made it a continuing and often politicized subject of public debate. A common argument against the installation of protective devices on the dams is that subsequent modifications would probably not be without further influences. For example, tour guides at Grand Coulee Dam say that "a fish ladder would have to be 5 mi (8 km) long to climb the 550 ft (168 m) difference in elevation and many fish would die before they reached the top" so that no fish ladders were built. Supporters of the aid measures, however, argue that such stairs would still be better than the status quo, which would have led to noticeable stock losses, perhaps even to the extinction of several forms of salmon.

The water provided by the project is great for agriculture in the region. North central Washington is one of the largest and most productive fruit growing areas in the world. Without the Grand Coulee Dam and the larger Columbia Basin Project, this region would be too arid for agriculture.

Economic benefits and costs

According to the Bureau of Reclamation, the Columbia Basin Project's annual value creation is $ 630 million in irrigated crops, $ 950 million in power generation, $ 20 million in flood control, and $ 50 million in Tourism. The project itself has costs that are difficult to determine. The farms that source irrigation water have to pay for it, but insufficient data from the Bureau of Reclamation makes it impossible to compare the total cost with the income. Regardless, the farmers' payments cover only a small part of the total costs, so the farms enjoy high subsidies in the form of water. Critics describe the CBP as a classic example of federal government money used to subsidize a relatively small group of farmers in the US West in places where under other circumstances it would never be economically viable.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Gina Bloodworth, James White: The Columbia Basin Project: Seventy-Five Years Later . In: Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers . 70, 2008, ISSN  0066-9628 , pp. 96-111. doi : 10.1353 / pcg.0.0006 . Retrieved May 30, 2013.
  2. ^ Project details - Columbia Basin Project . United States Bureau of Reclamation . Retrieved October 25, 2009.
  3. ↑ a b Archived copy . Archived from the original on October 3, 2014. Retrieved on August 5, 2012.
  4. ^ A b Elizabeth L. Orr, William N. Orr: Geology of the Pacific Northwest . The McGraw-Hill Companies, New York 1996, ISBN 0-07-048018-4 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Draft Environmental Statement, Columbia Basin Project, Washington; Columbia Basin Project, Ephrata, Washington; Department of the Interior, (INT DES-75-3), Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior; Washington, DC; 1975
  6. ↑ Roise Charlene (16 September 2014). "Powerhouse: Marcel Breuer at Grand Coulee". docomomo-us. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Grand Coulee Powerplant". US Bureau of Reclamation. Archived April 29, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
  8. ^ Columbia River - Annual Report 2001 . Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 16, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ijc.org
  9. ↑ https://pubs.usgs.gov/wdr/2005/wdr-wa-05-1/pdf/wa00103ADR2005_Figure60.pdf
  10. ↑ https://pubs.usgs.gov/wdr/2005/wdr-wa-05-1/pdf/wa00103ADR2005_Figure56.pdf
  11. ↑ https://pubs.usgs.gov/wdr/2005/wdr-wa-05-1/pdf/wa00103ADR2005_Figure52.pdf
  12. ↑ Bureau of Reclamation website ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.usbr.gov
  13. ↑ NWFS 2003 Update Summary, p.5
  14. ^ The Story of the Columbia Basin Project . United States Bureau of Reclamation . Retrieved October 25, 2009.

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