July 30…. Dam!

Every time we pass a dam in any river, I yell “Dam!”, and Susy looks up nervously and asks “what? what’s wrong?” 🤣🤣🤣. I’m hilarious, but for some reason she doesn’t think so.

We visited the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. It’s the first dam on the river coming from the ocean, and about 40 miles above Portland. It was the first one built on the river as well, in the 30’s, for generating power and improving navigable waterway on the Columbia. At the time of its construction, it was the largest water impoundment project in the entire country. The first of eleven dams, they now allow ships coming up river to make it all the way to Lewiston Idaho on the Snake River.

Over the years, it’s been expanded by a new and larger lock system, and a second powerhouse.

At current capacity, the dam generates over 1200 megawatts, enough to power almost a million homes. As long as they don’t all plug in their cars at the same time. 😲

Alongside the dam, they constructed a huge fish ladder, to allow millions of salmon and other species to get upstream to spawn and downstream to get back to the ocean. There’s a cool viewing area downstairs to allow an underwater look into the fish ladder.

All of it owned and managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, aka the federal gubmint. Your tax dollars in action.