Everything about Columbia River totally explained
The
Columbia River (known as
Wimahl or
Big River to the
Chinook-speaking natives who live on its lowermost reaches) is the largest
river in the
Pacific Northwest region of
North America. It is named after the
Columbia Rediviva, the first ship from the
western world known to have traveled up the river. It stretches from the
Canadian province of
British Columbia through the
U.S. state of
Washington, forming much of the border between Washington and
Oregon before emptying into the
Pacific Ocean. The river is long, and its drainage basin is .
Measured by the volume of its flow, the Columbia is the largest river flowing into the Pacific from North America and is the fourth-largest river in the United States. The river's heavy flow, and its large elevation drop over a relatively short distance, give it tremendous potential for the generation of electricity. It is the largest
hydroelectric power producing river in North America with
fourteen hydroelectric dams in the
United States and
Canada.
The Columbia and its tributaries are home to numerous
anadromous fish, which migrate between small fresh water tributaries of the river and the Pacific Ocean. These fish—especially the various species of
salmon—have been a vital part of the river's ecology and the local economy for thousands of years.
The taming of the river for human use, and the industrial waste that resulted in some cases, have come into conflict with ecological conservation numerous times since Americans and Europeans began to settle the area in the 18th century. This "harnessing," as it was commonly described in the popular culture of the early 20th century, included dredging for navigation by larger ships,
nuclear power generation and
nuclear weapons research and production, and the construction of dams for power generation, irrigation, navigation, and flood control.
Drainage basin
With an average annual flow of about, the Columbia is the largest river by volume flowing into the Pacific from
North America and is the fourth-largest by volume in the United States. The river flows from its headwaters to the Pacific and drains an area of about . The river's drainage basin covers nearly all of
Idaho, large portions of British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington, and small portions of several neighboring states. Roughly 85 percent of the drainage basin and of the river's length are in the United States.
Columbia Lake, elevation, forms the Columbia’s
headwaters in the
Canadian Rockies of southern British Columbia. (The province derives its name,
indirectly, from the river.) For its first, the Columbia flows northwest, through
Windermere Lake and the town of
Invermere, then northwest to
Golden and into
Kinbasket Lake. The Windermere–Columbia Lake area is known in BC as the
Columbia Valley. The river then turns sharply south (at the “Big Bend”), passing through
Revelstoke Lake and the
Arrow Lakes; Revelstoke, the Big Bend and the Columbia Valley combined are referred to in BC parlance as the
Columbia Country. Below the Arrow Lakes, the Columbia passes the cities of
Castlegar, located at the Columbia's confluence with the lower
Kootenay River, and
Trail, two major centres of the
West Kootenay region. The
Pend Oreille River joins the Columbia about north of the U.S.–Canada border.
The Columbia enters
eastern Washington flowing southwest. It marks the southern and eastern borders of the
Colville Indian Reservation and the western border of the
Spokane Indian Reservation before turning south and then southeasterly near the confluence with the
Wenatchee River in central Washington. This C-shaped segment of the river is also known as the "Big Bend". During the
Missoula Floods, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, much of the floodwaters took a more direct route south, forming the
Grand Coulee. After the floods, the river found its present course, and the Grand Coulee was left dry. The construction of the
Grand Coulee Dam in the mid-20th century backed the river up into the dry
coulee, forming the
reservoir of
Banks Lake.
The river flows past
The Gorge Amphitheatre, a prominent concert venue in the Northwest, and then past the
Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The
Snake River joins the Columbia in the
Tri-Cities area.
Hanford Reach, a section of the Columbia between
Priest Rapids Dam and the Tri-Cities, is the only American stretch of the river that's free-flowing, unimpeded by dams, and not a tidal
estuary. The Columbia makes a sharp bend to the west at the Washington–Oregon border. The river defines that border for the final of its journey.
Between The Dalles and
Portland, the river cuts through the
Cascade Mountains, forming the dramatic
Columbia River Gorge. (With the
Klamath River in southern Oregon and the
Pit River in northern
California, the Columbia is one of only three rivers to pass through the Cascades.) The gorge is known for its strong and steady winds, scenic beauty, and its role as an important transportation link.
The river continues west, bending sharply to the north-northwest between Portland and
Vancouver, Washington, at the river's
confluence with the
Willamette River. Here the river slows considerably, dropping sediment that might otherwise form a
river delta. The Columbia empties into the Pacific Ocean just past
Astoria, Oregon, over the
Columbia Bar, a shifting
sandbar that makes the river's mouth one of the most hazardous stretches of water to navigate in the world.
Geology
Volcanic activity in the region has been traced to 40 million years ago, in the
Eocene era, forming much of the landscape traversed by the Columbia. In the
Pleistocene era (the last ice age, two million to 700,000 years ago), the river broke through the
Cascade Range, forming the
Columbia River Gorge.
The river and
its drainage basin experienced some of the world’s greatest known floods toward the end of the last
ice age. The periodic rupturing of ice dams at
Glacial Lake Missoula resulted in discharge rates ten times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world, as many as forty times over a thousand-year period.
Water levels during the
Missoula Floods have been estimated at at the
Wallula Gap, at
Bonneville Dam, and over modern
Portland,
Oregon. The floods' periodic inundation of the lower
Columbia River Plateau deposited rich lake sediments, establishing the fertility that supports extensive agriculture in the modern era. They also formed many unusual geological features, such as the
channeled scablands of eastern Washington.
A mountain on the north side of the Columbia River Gorge, likely a result of the
Cascadia earthquake in 1700, in an event known as the
Bonneville Slide. The resulting land bridge blocked the river until rising waters tunneled through and finally washed away the sediment. In 1980, the
eruption of Mount St. Helens deposited large amounts of sediment in the lower Columbia, temporarily reducing the depth of the shipping channel by
Indigenous peoples
Humans have inhabited the Columbia River Basin for more than 15,000 years, with a transition to a sedentary lifestyle based mainly on salmon starting about 3,500 years ago. In 1962, archaeologists found evidence of human activity dating back 11,230 years at the
Marmes Rockshelter, near the confluence of the
Palouse and
Snake rivers in eastern Washington. In 1996, the skeletal remains of a 9,000-year-old prehistoric man (dubbed
Kennewick Man) were found near
Kennewick, Washington. The discovery rekindled debate in the scientific community over the origins of human habitation in
North America and sparked a protracted controversy over whether the scientific or
Native American community was entitled to possess and/or study the remains.
Several tribes and
First Nations have a historical and continuing presence on the Columbia. The
Sinixt or Lakes people lived on the lower stretch of the Canadian portion, the
Secwepemc on the upper; the
Colville,
Spokane,
Yakama,
Nez Perce,
Umatilla, and the
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs live along the U.S. stretch. Along the upper Snake River and
Salmon River, the
Shoshone Bannock Tribes are present. Near the lower Columbia River, the
Cowlitz and
Chinook tribes, which are not
federally recognized, are present. The Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes all have treaty fishing rights along the Columbia and its tributaries.
Perhaps a century before Europeans began to explore the Pacific Northwest, the Bonneville Slide created a
land bridge in the Columbia Gorge, known to natives as the
Bridge of the Gods. The bridge was described as the result a battle between gods, represented by
Mount Adams and
Mount Hood, vying for the affection of a goddess, represented by
Mount St. Helens. The bridge permitted increased interaction and trade between tribes on the north and south sides of the river until it was finally washed away.
The
Cascades Rapids of the Columbia River Gorge, and
Kettle Falls and
Priest Rapids in eastern Washington, were important fishing and trading sites submerged by the construction of dams. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, a coalition of various tribes, adopted a constitution and incorporated after the 1938 completion of the
Bonneville Dam flooded Cascades Rapids.
For 11,000 years,
Celilo Falls was the most significant economic and cultural hub for native peoples on the Columbia. It was located east of the modern city of
The Dalles. An estimated 15 to 20 million salmon passed through the falls every year, making it one of the greatest fishing sites in North America. The falls were strategically located at the border between
Chinookan and
Sahaptian speaking peoples and served as the center of an extensive trading network across the Pacific Plateau. It was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent until 1957, when it was submerged by the construction of
The Dalles Dam and the native fishing community was displaced. The affected tribes received a $26.8 million settlement for the loss of Celilo and other fishing sites submerged by the Dalles Dam. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs used part of its $4 million settlement to establish the
Kah-Nee-Tah resort south of
Mount Hood. There is some evidence that Spanish castaways reached the shore in 1679 and traded with the
Clatsop; if these were indeed the first Europeans to see the Columbia, they never managed to send word home to Spain.
In October 1792, Vancouver sent
Lieutenant William Robert Broughton, his second-in-command, up the river. Broughton sailed up for some miles, and then his company continued in small boats. He got as far as the
Columbia River Gorge, about upstream, sighting and naming
Mount Hood, as well as Point Vancouver, near the present-day city of
Vancouver, Washington. Broughton formally claimed the river, its
watershed, and the nearby coast for
Britain.
Explorers had long speculated about the existence of a
Northwest Passage or a great
River of the West connecting the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and some mapmakers depicted it on their maps. As the Columbia was at the same latitude as the headwaters of the
Missouri River, they now concluded that Gray and Vancouver had discovered the Northwest Passage. A 1798 British map showed a dotted line connecting the Columbia with the Missouri. The dredging and dam building that followed would permanently alter the river, disrupting its natural flow but also providing
electricity,
irrigation,
navigability and other benefits to the region.
Navigation
Robert Gray and British captain
George Vancouver, who explored the river in 1792, proved that it was possible to cross the
Columbia Bar. But the challenges associated with that feat remain today; even with modern engineering alterations to the mouth of the river, the strong currents and shifting sandbar make it dangerous to pass between the river and the Pacific Ocean.
The use of
steamboats along the river, beginning in 1850, contributed to the rapid settlement and economic development of the region. Steamboats operated in several places: on the river's lower reaches, from the Pacific Ocean to
Cascades Rapids, from the Cascades to Celilo Falls, and from Celilo to the confluence with the Snake River;
on the Wenatchee Reach of eastern Washington;
on British Columbia's Arrow Lakes; and
on tributaries like the Willamette, the Snake and
Kootenay Lake. The boats, initially powered by burning wood, carried both passengers and freight throughout the region for many years. Railroads served to connect steamboat lines where interrupted by waterfalls on the river's lower reaches. In the 1880s, railroads maintained by companies such as the
Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company and the
Shaver Transportation Company began to supplement steamboat operations as the major transportation links along the river.
Navigation locks were first constructed in 1896 around the Cascades Rapids, enabling boats to travel safely through the Columbia River Gorge. The
Celilo Canal, bypassing Celilo Falls, opened to river traffic in 1915. In the mid-20th century, the construction of dams along the length of the river submerged the rapids beneath a series of reservoirs. An extensive system of locks allowed ships and barges to pass easily from one reservoir to the next. A navigation channel reaching to Lewiston, Idaho, along the Columbia and
Snake Rivers, was completed in 1975.
The
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens caused mudslides in the area, which reduced the Columbia's depth by for a stretch, disrupting Portland's economy.
Deeper shipping channel
Efforts to maintain and improve the navigation channel have continued to the present day. In 1990, a new round of studies examined the possibility of further dredging on the lower Columbia. The plans were controversial from the start because of economic and environmental concerns.
In 1999, Congress authorized deepening the channel between Portland and Astoria from to, which will make it possible for large container and grain ships to reach Portland and Vancouver.
The project includes measures to mitigate environmental damage; for instance, for every acre (4,000 m²) of wetland damaged by the project, the Corps must restore of wetland. In early 2006, the Corps spilled of hydraulic oil into the Columbia, drawing further criticism from environmental organizations.
Work on the project began in 2005 and is expected to conclude in 2010. The project's cost is estimated at $150 million. The federal government is paying 65 percent, Oregon and Washington are paying $27 million each, and six local ports make payments as well.
Dams: harnessing the river
United States Bureau of Reclamation was established to aid in the
economic development of arid
western states. One of its major undertakings was building
Grand Coulee Dam to provide irrigation for the of the
Columbia Basin Project in central Washington. With the onset of
World War II, the focus of dam construction shifted to production of
hydroelectricity. Irrigation efforts resumed after the war.
River development occurred within the structure of the 1909
International Boundary Waters Treaty between the U.S. and Canada. In the 1960s, the United States and Canada signed the
Columbia River Treaty. Canada agreed to build dams and provide reservoir storage, and the U.S. agreed to deliver to Canada one-half of the increase in U.S. downstream power benefits as estimated five years in advance. Canada's obligation was met by building three dams (two on the Columbia, and one on the
Duncan River), the last of which was completed in 1973.
Today, the main stem of the Columbia River has 14 dams (3 in Canada, 11 in the U.S.) Four mainstem dams and four lower Snake River dams contain
navigation locks to allow ship and barge passage from the ocean as far as
Lewiston, Idaho. The river system as a whole has over 400 dams for hydroelectricity and irrigation.
The larger U.S. dams are owned and operated by the federal government (some by the
Army Corps of Engineers and some by the Bureau of Reclamation), while the smaller dams are operated by
public utility districts, and private power companies. The federally operated system is known as the
Federal Columbia River Power System, which includes 31 dams on the Columbia and its tributaries. The system has altered the seasonal flow of the river in order to meet higher electricity demands during the winter. At the beginning of the 20th century, roughly 75 percent of the Columbia's flow occurred in the summer, between April and September. By 1980, the summer proportion had been lowered to about 50 percent, essentially eliminating the seasonal pattern.
The installation of dams dramatically altered the landscape and ecosystem of the river. At one time, the Columbia was one of the top
salmon-producing river systems in the world. Previously active fishing sites, most notably
Celilo Falls in the eastern Columbia River Gorge, have exhibited a sharp decline in fishing along the Columbia in the last century, and salmon populations have been dramatically reduced.
Fish ladders have been installed at some dam sites to help the fish journey to spawning waters.
Grand Coulee Dam has no fish ladders and completely blocks fish migration to the upper half of the Columbia River system.
Irrigation
The Bureau of Reclamation's
Columbia Basin Project focused on the generally dry
Columbia River Basin, which features rich
loess soil deposited by the Missoula Floods. Several groups developed competing proposals, and in 1933, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the
Columbia Basin Project. The
Grand Coulee Dam was the project's central component; upon completion, it pumped water up from the Columbia to fill the formerly dry
Grand Coulee, forming
Banks Lake. By 1935, the intended height of the dam was increased from a range between and to, a height that would extend the lake impounded by the dam all the way to the Canadian border; the project had grown from a local
New Deal relief measure to a major national project. The project provides water to more than of fertile but arid lands in central Washington State. Water from the project has transformed the region from a wasteland barely able to produce subsistence levels of dry-land wheat crops to a major agricultural center. Important crops include
apples,
potatoes,
alfalfa,
wheat,
corn (maize),
barley,
hops,
beans, and
sugar beets.
Since 1750, the Columbia has experienced six multi-year droughts, much more severe than any in recent memory. The longest, in the mid-1800s, lasted 12 years, with the river's flow dropping 20 percent below average. Scientists have expressed concern over what such a drought could do to the today's regional economy, with its heavy reliance on the Columbia. In 1992–93, a lesser drought impacted farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers, and wildlife managers.
Hydroelectricity
/ ]]
The Columbia's heavy flow and extreme elevation drop over a short distance,, give it tremendous capacity for
hydroelectricity generation. In comparison, the Mississippi drops less than . The Columbia alone possesses a third of the United States's hydroelectric potential.
The largest of the 150 hydroelectric projects, the
Grand Coulee Dam and the
Chief Joseph Dam, are also the largest in the United States
and among the
largest in the world.
Inexpensive hydro-power supported the emergence of an extensive
aluminum industry, which draws tremendous amounts of power. Until 2000, the
Northwestern United States produced up to 40 percent of the aluminum produced in the U.S., and 17 percent of the world's aluminum. But the commoditization of power in the early 2000s, coupled with drought that reduced the generation capacity of the river, damaged the industry; by 2003, the U.S. produced only 15 percent of the world's aluminum, many smelters among the Columbia having gone dormant or having gone out of business.
Power remains relatively inexpensive along the Columbia, and in recent years high-tech companies like
Google have begun to move
server farm operations into the area to avail themselves of cheap power.
Downriver of Grand Coulee, each dam’s reservoir is closely regulated by the
Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Army Corps of Engineers, and various Washington Public Utility Districts to ensure flow, flood control, and power generation objectives are met. Increasingly, hydro-power operations are required to meet standards under the U.S.
Endangered Species Act and other agreements to manage operations to minimize impacts on salmon and other fish, and some conservation and fishing groups support removing four dams on the lower
Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia.
In 1941, the BPA hired
Oklahoma folksinger
Woody Guthrie to write songs for a documentary film promoting the benefits of hydropower. In the month he spent traveling the region Guthrie wrote 26 songs, which have become an important part of the cultural history of the region.
Ecology and environment
Fish migration
The Columbia supports several species of
anadromous fish that migrate between the Pacific Ocean and fresh water tributaries of the river.
Coho and
Chinook (a.k.a King) salmon and
Steelhead, all of the genus
Oncorhynchus, are ocean fish that migrate up the rivers at the end of their life cycles to spawn.
White sturgeon, which take 25 years to grow to full size, typically migrate between the ocean and the upstream habitat several times during their lives.
Dams interrupt the migration of anadromous fish. Salmon and steelhead return to the streams in which they were born to spawn; where dams prevent their return, entire populations of salmon die. Some of the Columbia and Snake River dams employ
fish ladders, which are effective to varying degrees at allowing these fish to travel upstream. Another problem exists for the juvenile salmon headed downstream to the ocean. Previously, this journey would have taken two to three weeks. With river currents slowed by the dams, and the Columbia converted from wild river to a series of slackwater pools, the journey can take several months, which increases the mortality rate. In some cases, the Army Corps of Engineers transports juvenile fish downstream by truck or river barge. The
Grand Coulee Dam and several dams on the Columbia's tributaries entirely block migration, and there are no migrating fish on the river above these dams. Sturgeon have different migration habits and can survive without ever visiting the ocean. In many upstream areas cut off from the ocean by dams, sturgeon simply live upstream of the dam.
In 1994, the salmon catch was smaller than usual in the rivers of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, causing concern among commercial fishermen, government agencies, and tribal leaders. U.S. government intervention, to which the states of Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon objected, included an 11-day closure of an Alaska fishery. In April 1994 the
Pacific Fisheries Management Council unanimously approved the strictest regulations in 18 years, banning all commercial salmon fishing for that year from
Cape Falcon north to the Canadian border.
Also in 1994,
United States Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt first proposed the removal of several Pacific Northwest dams because of their impact on salmon spawning. The
Northwest Power Planning Council approved a plan that provided more water for fish and less for electricity, irrigation, and transportation. Environmental advocates have called for the removal of certain dams in the Columbia system in the years since. Of the 227 major dams in the Columbia River Basin, the four Washington dams on the lower
Snake River are often identified for removal, notably in an ongoing lawsuit concerning a
Bush administration plan for salmon recovery. Historically, the Snake produced over 1.5 million spring and summer
Chinook Salmon, a number that has dwindled to several thousand in recent years.
Idaho Power Company's
Hells Canyon dams have no fish ladders (and don't pass juvenile salmon downstream), and thus allow no steelhead or salmon to migrate above Hells Canyon. In 2007, the destruction of the
Marmot Dam on the
Sandy River was the first dam removal in the system. There are plans to remove the
Condit Dam on Washington's
White Salmon River, and the
Milltown Dam on the
Clark Fork in
Montana.
Pollution
In southeastern Washington, a stretch of the river passes through the
Hanford Site, established in 1943 as part of the
Manhattan Project. The site served as a
plutonium production complex, with nine
nuclear reactors and related facilities located on the banks of the river. From 1944 to 1971, pump systems drew cooling water from the river and, after treating this water for use by the reactors, returned it to the river. Before being released back into the river, the used water was held in large tanks known as retention basins for up to six hours. Longer-lived
isotopes were not affected by this retention, and several
terabecquerels entered the river every day. By 1957, the eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford dumped a daily average of 50,000
curies of radioactive material into the Columbia. These releases were kept secret by the federal government until the release of declassified documents in the late 1980s. Radiation was measured downstream as far west as the Washington and
Oregon coasts.
The nuclear reactors were decommissioned at the end of the
Cold War, and the Hanford site is now the focus of the world’s largest
environmental cleanup, managed by the
Department of Energy under the oversight of the
Washington Department of Ecology and the
Environmental Protection Agency. Nearby aquifers contain an estimated 270 billion US gallons (1 billion m³) of groundwater contaminated by
high-level nuclear waste that has leaked out of Hanford's massive underground storage tanks. As of 2008, 1 million US gallons (3,785 m³) of highly radioactive waste is traveling through groundwater toward the Columbia River. This waste is expected to reach the river in 12 to 50 years if cleanup doesn't proceed on schedule.
In addition to concerns about nuclear waste, numerous other pollutants are found in the river. These include chemical pesticides, bacteria, arsenic, dioxins, and
polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).
Studies have also found significant levels of toxins in fish and the waters they inhabit within the basin. Accumulation of toxins in fish threatens the survival of fish species, and human consumption of these fish can lead to health problems. Water quality is also an important factor in the survival of other wildlife and plants that grow in the Columbia River Basin. The states, Indian tribes, and federal government are all engaged in efforts to restore and improve the water, land, and air quality of the Columbia River Basin and have committed to work together to enhance and accomplish critical ecosystem restoration efforts. A number of cleanup efforts are currently underway, including
Superfund projects at Portland Harbor, Hanford, and
Lake Roosevelt.
Timber harvesting further contaminates river water; the
Northwest Forest Plan, a piece of federal legislation from 1994, mandated that timber companies consider the environmental impacts of their practices on rivers like the Columbia.
On
July 1 2003, Christopher Swain of Portland, Oregon, became the first person to swim the Columbia River's entire length, in an effort to raise public awareness about the river's environmental health.
Major tributaries
| Tributary |
Average
discharge:
|
| cu ft/s |
m³/s |
| Snake River |
56,900 |
1,611 |
| Willamette River |
35,660 |
1,010 |
| Kootenay River (Kootenai) |
30,650 |
867 |
| Pend Oreille River |
27,820 |
788 |
| Cowlitz River |
9,200 |
261 |
| Spokane River |
6,700 |
190 |
| Deschutes River |
6,000 |
170 |
| Lewis River |
4,800 |
136 |
| Yakima River |
3,540 |
100 |
| Wenatchee River |
3,220 |
91 |
| Okanogan River |
3,050 |
86 |
| Kettle River |
2,930 |
83 |
| Sandy River |
2,260 |
64 |
Further Information
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