BETRAYAL AT HELL'S CANYON
Neuberger, Richard L.
Betrayal at Hell's Canyon By Richard L. Neuberger Portland, Ore. GRAND COULEE Dam stirs the pride of nearly every American. The greatest edifice ever reared by man, it towers athwart the upper...
...This flow could be poured through the Hell's Canyon spillways, to fill dry penstocks at dams on the lower Columbia...
...He said granting of the company's application would block the high dam in Hell's Canyon...
...WJien he withdrew Interior Department intervention against the Idaho- Power Company application...
...Secretary McKay pointed out that the private dams could be built immediately, whereas Congress had consistently refused to authorize the Hell's Canyon project...
...But far-sighted men in the region prevented this short-changing of the Northwest's future...
...This is what is known as having your cake and eating it, too...
...Another 651,000 kilowatts are added to the capacity of dams farther downstream by water impounded back of Grand Coulee's lofty parapet...
...It has not been made clear why one federal dam should be "socialistic" and another federal dam worthy of the best Republican lineage...
...The way now is clear for approval of the Idaho Power Company plan...
...Hydroelectric energy from the impressive dams on the Columbia River system has fostered a mighty aluminum industry, it has made feasible 50,000 planes a year to ward off potential aggression, and it has stoked furnaces for the Hanford Works, where plutonium-235 for the atomic bomb undergoes its final processing...
...In no respect is the issue between "socialism" and free enterprise...
...One of the arguments against Hell's Canyon Dam has been that it would be "socialistic...
...This would have foreclosed construction of the high dam, for it then would have flooded the works at Kettle Falls...
...But now the Interior Department has a new Secretary, former Gov...
...Who would use only a fraction of a magnificent water-power site...
...Douglas McKay of Oregon...
...Why leave three-fourths of a fertile field fallow...
...The Hell's Canyon elephant evidently is to be bartered for the Idaho Power mouse...
...A pigmy view of the next decade has prevailed...
...government has announced, through the Department of the Interior, that it will be satisfied with substantially less than total development of the Columbia and its foaming tributaries, as they course majestically to the sea...
...Herbert Hoover evidently is proud to have his name associated with Hoover Dam on the Colorado...
...When Douglas McKay ran for reelection as Oregon's Governor in 1950, he boasted that he had helped secure the Lookout Point and Detroit Dams from the federal government for the Willamette Valley in his state...
...In its twin powerhouses are generated 1,373,000 kilowatts of electricity...
...In 1933 the Grand Coulee horse was not traded for the Kettle Falls rabbit...
...Most of the Northwest's Republican governors fought tooth and nail against all bills introduced in Congress for a government dam at Hell's Canyon...
...They refused to trade 2!024,000 kilowatts for approximately 500,000 kilowatts...
...This vast pool of energy has strengthened private industry in the Northwest by making possible aluminum plants, shipyards, airplane factories, and mechanized farms...
...The issue is complete utilization of the falling water of a region containing 2 per cent of all the untapped water power in the United States...
...But now, for the first time, the U.S...
...Regional control is one of the alleged goals of the Idaho Power partisans, a strange objective in view of the fact that the utility is a Maine corporation with less than one per cent of the stock held in the Northwest...
...In late summer, snowbanks in the Canadian Rockies and Grand Te-tons are depleted...
...The greatest edifice ever reared by man, it towers athwart the upper Columbia River like a fortress...
...A similar dilemma confronts the Northwest today, but this time the region's destiny will be jettisoned...
...But the 750-foot dam in Hell's Canyon, wedged between precipitous abutments of lava rock, would form a natural reservoir storing 3,800,000 acre-feet of water...
...This year, however, a new standard in swaps has been established...
...Now they say dolefully that, inasmuch as Congress has refused to act, federal construction programs in Hell's Canyon had best be abandoned...
...Writing in the Denver Post, Robert W. Lucas has pointed out that Hell's Canyon Dam would have an installed capacity of 900,000 kilowatts, while the three Idaho Power dams would have a capacity of 783,000 kilowatts...
...But it is more than mere masonry...
...The Idaho Power Company has suggested, instead, three smaller projects along the same general section of the Snake...
...Both the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Army Engineers have proposed building a huge dam in the mile-deep slot of Hell's Canyon on the Snake River, principal tributary of the Columbia...
...Yet there was a time, a generation ago, that Grand Coulee nearly was blocked forever...
...Production of power ebbs at such downstream dams as Bonneville and McNary...
...RICHARD L. NEUBERGER, one of the country's best-known writers on the Pacific Northwest, writes extensively of public affairs, conservation, and related ' subjects, for many American publications, including Harper's, The St...
...And Lucas added: "Nor will the smaller dams be able to contribute more than a fraction of the downstream supplemental water for turning generator wheels that will spin out at least 400,000 more kilowatts with the push from Hell's Canyon storage, released when most needed...
...This plan will be to the big dam in Hell's Canyon what acceptance of the Kettle Falls application might have been to Grand Coulee in the 1930's—the ax, the end, finis...
...Once the Idaho Power dams are built, the Hell's Canyon site—considered by Army Engineers to be one of the finest damsites in America—is perpetually lost, for the high dam then would flood out the company structures...
...If the Army Engineers are "socialists," the outfield of the Brooklyn Dodgers is qualified for the Sadler Wells Ballet...
...When the company filed an application with the Federal Power Commission in 1952, Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman intervened in opposition...
...A utility company wanted to erect a small dam at Kettle Falls on the Columbia, above the Coulee site...
...The sun has set early this season...
...Rivers run low...
...Louis-Dispatch, The New York Times, Frontier, and The New Republic He is the author of two books, "The Promised Land" and "Integrity—The Life of George W. Norris...
...He has formally withdrawn the objections presented by his predecessor...
...Actually, government dams in the Northwest have made possible hundreds of prospering privately-owned manufacturing plants, which pay taxes and support payrolls...
...They conveniently neglect to mention that Hell's Canyon Dam is an integral part of the famous 308 Report of the Army Engineers for full development of the hydro-electric resources of the Columbia Basin...
...When the "socialist" cry is at its height, the opponents of Hell's Canyon Dam stress sponsorship of the project by the supposedly-radical Reclamation Bureau...
...They administered the coup de grace, and then they mourn at the funeral...
Vol. 17 • July 1953 • No. 7
