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The Grand Coulee Dam, while the largest hydroelectric facility ever constructed, was multipurpose in its goals. But before construction even began, the design of the dam had to be decided. The type of dam to be built had little or nothing to do with the actual best interest of the river, the efficiency of use, or the future environmental effects. The argument was almost entirely political and economic. The people of Spokane preferred a plan for a gravity dam, a concrete dam not used for hydroelectricity but only for navigation and irrigation. They were comprised of wealthier, urban businessmen and professionals and their reasons were simply to protect the private power interests of the Washington Water Power Company. Public power was a real threat in this fearful age of incoming socialism. Their opinions reflected that of 19th century laissez faire water law. The Spokane effort, manifest in the Columbia Basin Irrigation League, however, was the driving force behind the reclamation project (Pitzer, 55-56). The other side of the argument was the pump dam plan. Its supporters were mostly rural residents in Wenatchee and Ephrata who desired public assistance to throw off the shackles of Spokanešs utility hegemony. They created the Columbia River Development League as a true grassroots organization. The pumpers eventually won, not because the presented better data or were able to prove that a pumping plan would better utilize the irrigation powers of the Columbia (Pitzer, 57). Major Butler of the Army Corps of Engineers presented his report and buried the gravity plan. It was obvious that in order to pay for irrigation revenue was needed. Power was the greatest source of power, and the report was able to find some numbers that would create enough demand for such a large power project.
It was the panacea for all the region's problems. First, as projected by Franklin D. Roosevelt in a September 21, 1932 speech, the "next great hydroelectric development to be undertaken by the Federal government [was] on the Columbia River" (Lowitt, 157). The Grand Coulee Dam would have enough power to provide electricity for all of Chicago. This was a strange and almost useless supply, because the population of Washington State at that time was very limited, and Bonneville Dam was already providing power. Second, the Grand Coulee Dam would provide flood prevention, flow control, and soil erosion control as part of the Army Engineeršs goals. Third, the Grand Coulee Dam, provided it was constructed as a high dam, would be able to contain massive storage of water and irrigate more than one million acres of desert farms. Fourth, the construction of the dam would create land with an agricultural use and economic profitability by expanding transportation, creating a community infrastructure, and a market economy. Irrigation was what separated the Grand Coulee Dam from the other Columbia River projects. As a Bureau of Reclamation project, irrigation for land use was the most significant aspect. The idealism and rhetoric of a western Promised Land had not died. There were farmers in the desert; crops failed and cattle choked on dust. Images of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath were imprinted in the national mind.
Finally, as a PWA project, the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam would provide federally funded jobs to young men and boost a new town. The sarcastically named makeshift "Hoovervilles" were to be overcome with new found money. Roosevelt was voted more popular than God in a poll among New York City schoolchildren (Reisner, 145). He would build the infrastructure of the nation with tunnels, bridges, roads, and dams. Inside the two original powerhouses were hand-carved terrazzo that mimicked the blueprints of the turbines. Obviously the inside of the dam did not need such intricate design; it was a powerhouse not a museum. But the goal was putting Americans to work. When the Third Powerhouse began construction in 1966, the architect scoured the nation for someone to hand carve terrazzo. Not one could be found.
Unlike the Bonneville Dam, Grand Coulee Dam was designed with the purpose of irrigation. The Bonneville Dam was originally intended to be a low dam with its primary purpose to achieve a navigable river to the Dalles. It was Federal Project no. 28, approved by the Public Works Administration in September 1933. Congress formally approved the construction on August 30, 1935. The estimated costs were $45 million but in the end was $75 million. The costs of the dam construction would be paid off in time with the implementation of a self-liquidating hydroelectric program. The Bonneville Dam effected Oregon's Willamette Valley region more than Washington State, but its construction set in the place the beginnings of a mechanized river as well as a hydroelectric power administration for the Pacific Northwest (Lowitt, 158).
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