A student presentation made by students in "The Waterless West" course, part of the 2011 NCSSM Summer Symposium on the Global Water Crisis

1. Columbia Basin By: Haley B. and Paige S.

2. A lot of groundwater mining was taking place in Odessa subarea and was draining the water out of the area. The Columbia Basin Project was decided upon because it would bring water to back to the area and replace the removed groundwater. Why was it needed?

3. The government chose to build a high dam which took longer than expected, causing the project to last nearly a decade. All the material had to be shipped in and there was enough to fill 60,000 railroad freight cars. The dams weights weighed 150,000 pounds and their inlet pipes had to be constructed onsite because of their size. The Engineering Involved…

4. They used the largest generators available to power all the equipment. The main dam was finished in 1941 and was 4,173 feet long. The 20 conduits pumped 265,000 cubic feet of water per second and are 8.5 feet in diameter. The total cost was 162 million dollars More Engineering …

5. Irrigation ditches, hydroelectric dams, commercial fisheries, the dredging of navigation channels, and the input of pollutants had all affected major changes in the river's physical and biological characteristics by the early twentieth century. Annual runs of Columbia River salmon have declined from an estimated 8 to 16 million to an average of fewer than 1 million, and a dozen stocks have been listed as either threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Controversies?

6. In addition to blocking access to spawning grounds, dams alter the seasonal flow of the river, prevent juvenile salmon from migrating downstream to the ocean, increase the abundance of fish predators, and change water quality by raising the temperature and increasing the amount of nitrogen in the water. In the 1980s when talk of expanding the project came up, the completion of the project was rejected as economically infeasible and environmentally harmful. Controversies, Continued?

7. The Columbia Basin Project uses a vast complex of distribution canals to deliver water to individual water users The goal is to better meet Reclamation obligations by delivering water more reliably and more efficiently while still preserving natural systems Serving the Public

8. All the dams of the Columbia basin have severely affected the aquatic life in those areas. It has killed many types of fish and made fishing a thing of the past. Bonneville Dam inundated thirty-five native fishing sites Now in some areas people are having to go back and create replacement fishing sites to make up for the lost habitat Disserving the Public

9. http://www.columbia-institute.org/oa/odessa/CBP.html http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/dams.htm http://hugefloods.com/GrandCoulee.html http://www.usbr.gov/research/science-and-tech/research/detail.cfm?id=621 http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Columbia+Basin+Project Sources