Dam Couldn’t Be Built Today

Historians say the biggest project in Northwest history couldn’t be built today - even if Franklin D. Roosevelt were president.

“Absolutely not,” said historian and author Robert Ficken. “Nobody could afford it.”

Building Grand Coulee Dam cost the federal government about $240 million at a time when seeing a movie cost 20 cents. Another $660 million was spent on a third power plant in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

That doesn’t include the cost of the Columbia Basin Project, the irrigation system that was the dam’s reason for being.

No one knows whether the cost today would be double, triple or 10 times the original amount. Inflation is only one factor.

Seventy-seven men died building the dam. Costly safety precautions would be required today.

Before work could begin now, the government would have to write an environmental impact statement, a process that would take years.

“That would just about rule out anything as monumental as Grand Coulee Dam today,” said Paul Pitzer, Aloha, Ore., author of “Grand Coulee, Harnessing a Dream.”

Assuming the project survived environmental review, it would have to include ways to save salmon.

Only now is the government putting a price on the environmental damage caused by the dam. The Colville Confederated Tribes received $53 million in compensation last week for flooded lands and spoiled salmon spawning grounds. The tribes will get at least $15 million more annually.