Columbia Chronicles Ebb And Flow Dams Have Changed Columbia Forever; But The River Retains Spiritual Drawing Power

The speed boat jerks from shore, leaving a trail of bubbles. The rope tightens and stretches as the boat accelerates, and the parachute rises, dangling its passenger over the river.

A hundred miles downstream, a web of lines carries power from the river. Pipes as big as tunnels collect water there and spread it over a million acres of desert turned green.

Farther south, three cities draw wealth from a Cold War bomb factory that could not exist without the cooling waters of the river. An atomic bomb from that plant helped end the century’s worst war.

This is the Columbia River, arguably the hardest working big river in the nation.

Changed in every way engineers could imagine, the river remains unchanged in its ability to draw people to it and make them reliant upon it.

The river continues to evolve as a resource. For the next month, The Spokesman-Review will chronicle the changes and the people who build their lives along the river.

Thousands of Native Americans once depended on the river for salmon and spirituality.

Millions rely on it now to light their homes, provide their paychecks, and fill their sinks and cupboards.

More and more, they are counting on it for recreation and renewal, as other waters become crowded and over-fished.

Use of campgrounds and boat launches on Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir formed by Grand Coulee Dam, increased 26 percent in 1994.

Use this year is outpacing last year’s, as was apparent the sunny third weekend in May. More people visited the reservoir that normally quiet weekend than on Memorial Day weekend 1994, said George Phillips, assistant superintendent of Grand Coulee Dam National Recreation Area.

Busloads of college students and retirees come to study the geological evidence of Ice Age floods that created the river canyons. Bird watchers flock to its banks each winter because eagles gather there, too.

Uncounted others stand on overlooks or gravel beaches, simply to watch the water.

“You can still be moved by the beauty and majesty of the river,” said Robert Clark, author of “River of the West,” a new book about the Columbia. “That, to me, has a spirituality about it.”

No other feature between the Cascade and the Rocky mountains has such prominence as the river into which the Spokane, the Pend Oreille, the Snake and all other Inland Northwest rivers flow.

Melting snow in parts of Glacier National Park or Yellowstone National Park eventually flows into the Columbia. The same river that waters orchards in British Columbia floats barges past Portland toward the Pacific.

This is not the longest or the widest river in North America. It does not match the Mississippi for volume of water moved. But it is the steepest, swiftest and most powerful big river in the lower 48 states, dropping 2,650 feet in its 1,243 miles.

Those attributes impressed the dam builders.

In the middle decades of this century they came one dam shy of turning the U.S. portion of the river into a string of lakes. They could not dam Hanford Reach without flooding the government’s nuclear reservation, so that 60-mile stretch of river remains free-flowing.

“The steepness is what builds up a head for hydropower,” said Craig Sprankle, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at Grand Coulee. “You need that drop, which produces the energy to give you electricity.”

Eleven dams span the river in the United States. Those and 151 other dams on Columbia River tributaries provide one third of the nation’s hydropower, illuminating cities and producing aluminum for airplanes and beer cans. Grand Coulee alone produces more than enough power to light four Spokanes.

The river system provides drinking water for more than 3 million people. More than half the nation’s apples would shrivel on trees if the Columbia’s waters stopped flowing.

“We get as little as 5 inches of rain a year, maybe as much as 18 inches some years,” said Grady Avil, who has grown apples along the Columbia since 1908. “For agriculture, you need 30 or 40 inches.”

Irrigation, hydropower production and other development come with a price, including the decline of native fish.

Up to 16 million salmon once migrated into the Columbia River system. Now, they number fewer than 2 million, and most of those are raised in hatcheries, not streams.

“The river is remarkably Clear and Crowded with Salmon in maney places,” Capt. William Clark wrote on Oct. 17, 1805, when his expedition with Meriwether Lewis reached the river.

“We used to have salmon by the glory, all the way from the ocean to Kettle Falls,” Colville tribal member Martin Louie Sr. said in April, when the tribes received government checks compensating them for the losses caused by Grand Coulee Dam. “I don’t think the government has enough money to pay me for all of that.”

To Avil, whose orchards occupy four miles of river bank, talk of dams as destroyers is nonsense. He recalled when the river flooded each spring and shriveled each summer, when children couldn’t swim without being swept away.

“It’s a lovely place for everybody now,” Avil said. “It’s almost a lake, and there’s probably 40 times the use of when it was a river.”

Reporting for a group of clients that included dam builders and environmentalists, a consultant in 1973 declined to label the changes on the river as either good or evil.

“We have changed the Columbia River on a massive scale,” he wrote. “For better, for worse and probably forever.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color) Graphic: The Columbia: river of change

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Columbia inspires books, music, video For readers wanting to know more about the Columbia River, here is a list of selected books, music and videos. The books are generally available through bookstores or the Spokane city and county libraries: Books “Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River” by William Dietrich (Simon and Schuster, 1995). “Sources of the River” by Jack Nisbet (Sasquatch Books, 1995). “Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River” by Robin Cody (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995). “River of the West: Stories from the Columbia” by Robert Clark (HarperCollins West, 1995). “Grand Coulee: Harnessing the Dream” by Paul Pitzer (Washington State University Press, 1994). “The Columbia River: A Historical Travel Guide” by JoAnn Roe (Fulcrum Publishing, 1992). “Columbia River Gorge: a complete guide” by Philip N. Jones (Mountaineers, 1992). “Roll on Columbia. The Columbia River Collection,” Woody Guthrie songbook (Sing Out Publications, 1991). “Beautiful America’s Columbia River Gorge” by Craig Tuttle (Beautiful America Publishing, 1991). “Columbia’s River: The Voyage of Robert Gray” by J. Richard Nokes (Washington State Historical Society, 1991). “Wildflowers of the Columbia Gorge” by Russ Jolley (Oregon Historical Society Press, 1988). “Cataclysms on the Columbia” by John Allen and Marjorie Burns with Sam Sargent (Timber Press, 1986). “Cruising the Columbia and Snake Rivers” by Sharlene P. Nelson (Pacific Search Press, 1986). “Columbia; Great River of the West” by Earl Roberge (Chronicle Books, 1985). Music “Columbia River Collection,” 17 songs about the river and the West, written and performed by Woody Guthrie (Rounder Records Corp., 1987, $16.98 compact disc; $9.98 cassette). Available at Street Music. Video “The Columbia River Gorge: A Chasm of Majesty,” narrated 85-mile tour of Columbia River Valley. Available at City of Spokane Library (Encounter Video Inc., 1990).