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Dams of the Columbia Basin & Their
Effects on the Native Fishery
Bonneville *
The Dalles *
John Day & McNary *
Priest Rapids & Wanapum *
Grand Coulee *
Ice Harbor, Lower Monument, Little Goose & Lower Granite *
Hells Canyon, Oxbow, Brownlee & Dworshak *
Revelstoke, Keenleyside, Mica & Duncan
Rock Island Dam. Courtesy of Chelan County Public Utility District
Rock Island Dam:
Columbia River, at mile marker 453.4, completed in 1933, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric PUD, second powerhouse completed in 1979,
1184 foot spillway, 31 gates. PUD owned. Chelan and Douglas PUDs combined a fish bypass
system with habitat restoration and hatchery programs to mitigate the effects of Rock Island and Rocky Reach Dams on salmon and
steelhead.
The Colville confederated tribes of Indians testified before Congress that this dam, built in 1933, damaged their
fishery at Kettle Falls. In 1929, they recorded a harvest at the falls of 1,333 fish, which, by 1934,
was reduced to just 159 fish.
Rocky Reach Dam. Courtesy of Chelan County Public Utility District
Rocky Reach Dam:
Columbia River, at mile marker 473.7, completed in 1961, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric, PUD owned, additional units completed in
1971, spillway 12 gates.
Wells Dam. Courtesy of Chelan County Public Utility District
Wells Dam:
Columbia River, at mile marker 515.8, completed in 1967, concrete gravity type,
hydroelectric PUD owned, 4460 feet in length, 2 fish ladders. The Wells Fish
Hatchery releases 3 million juvenile salmon and steelhead annually. In the 1980s the
Douglas County PUD developed a hydrocombine system to keep juvenile salmon from the
turbines. According to the PUD, the system resulted in the highest
percentage of juvenile surviving to pass through any dam on the Columbia River.
The Columbia River near the Colville Indian Reservation. Photo by Dr.
Edward H. Latham, Courtesy of Special Collections,
Suzzallo Library University of Washington
Chief Joseph Dam:
Columbia River at mile marker 545.1, completed in 1955, concrete gravity type, federally owned, hydroelectric, spillway 980 feet, 19 gates,
5962 feet long, 236 feet high. At over one mile long it is the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the U.S. It also supplies
irrigation water for more than 4500 acres of land. Rufus Woods Lake, the dam's reservoir, extends 51 miles
upstream to Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is named after Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph, the only dam in the Northwest named after
an Indian. Chief Joseph spent his last years in exile after the Nez Perce War of 1877
on the Colville Indian Reservation, which borders the north shore of Rufus Woods Lake.
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