Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Grand Coulee Dam


Grand Coulee Dam

Originally uploaded by marymompics

Dam, that’s big! The Grand Coulee Dam generates more electricity than any other hydroelectric plant in the US. It was one of FDR’s NRA projects started in 1933 and completed in 1941 bringing electricity, irrigation and flood control to Washington. We saw a movie about the building of the dam and the politics behind trying to get it built. Apparently the private electric companies lobbied hard to squash the project (duh).

An interesting side note – in the film they showed the election campaigning of FDR. He was all about taking the country in a new direction and leading the country out of depression with new ideas and hope. It sounded a lot like Obama’s speeches.

Our perusal of the dam was not quite as thorough as we would have hoped. There is a tour that goes on the top of the dam and down an elevator to the generators. A lot of it is conducted outside. On the north side of the dam, though, there was a wildfire and the air was filled with smoke. After about 5 minutes I was coughing so that put the kabosh on doing anything outside.

Rats.

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