Buildings and Structures in Grant County, Washington - Banks Lake, Beverly Railroad Bridge, Big Bend Community College, Dry Falls Dam, Ephrata (Amtrak (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 24. Chapters: Banks Lake, Beverly Railroad Bridge, Big Bend Community College, Dry Falls Dam, Ephrata (Amtrak station), Ephrata Municipal Airport, Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake, Grand Coulee Bridge, Grand Coulee Dam, Grant County International Airport, Lake Wanapum, Larson Air Force Base, Lind Coulee Archaeological Site, Mattawa Ropeway Conveyor, Moses Lake, O'Sullivan Dam, Pinto Dam, Potholes Reservoir, Priest Rapids Dam, Priest Rapids Lake, Sun Lakes Resort, The Gorge Amphitheatre, Vantage Bridge, Vernita Bridge, Wanapum Dam. Excerpt: Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy production. It is the largest electric power-producing facility in the United States and one of the largest concrete structures in the world. The proposal to build the dam was the focus of a bitter debate during the 1920s between two groups. One wanted to irrigate the ancient Grand Coulee with a gravity canal and the other supported a high dam and pumping scheme. Dam supporters won in 1933, but for fiscal reasons the initial design was for a "low dam" 290 ft (88 m) high which would generate electricity, but not support irrigation. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and a consortium of three companies called MWAK (Mason-Walsh-Atkinson Kier Company) began construction that year. After visiting the construction site in, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began endorsing the "high dam" design which, at 550 ft (168 m) high, would provide enough electricity to pump water to irrigate the Columbia Basin. The high dam was approved by Congress in 1935 and completed in 1942; the first water over-topped its spillway on of...