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Show Hydroelectric power facilities in the Columbia River Basin, including both Federal and non-Fed- eral plants, are operated as part of the region-wide Northwest Power Pool which covers substantially the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and western Montana. Included in this pool are the generating facilities, both steam and hydro, of the major electric utilities in the region, the Bonne- ville and Grand Coulee plants of the Federal Gov- ernment, and the transmission network of the Bon- neville Power Administration. Participation in the pool is on a voluntary basis. The pool provides system operation which is practically equivalent to that to be expected under one ownership. The Department of the Interior, which markets the power from the Bonneville and Grand Coulee plants and will market the power from future Fed- eral projects in the region, provides the transmission network permitting efficient pool operation. The Department's transmission network consists of 4,050 circuit miles of line and 109 substations with 3,458,- 000 kilovolt-amperes of transformer capacity. Power produced is transmitted over the system to principal load centers in the region and sold at wholesale to private and public power distributors, large power-using industries, and to military, naval, atomic energy, and other Federal establishments. The combined peaking capacity of the pool now totals about 4.5 million kilowatts, of which approxi- mately 90 percent is provided by hydroelectric plants. Recent estimates of loads indicate that a system demand of between 4.5 million and 5 million kilowatts may be expected by the end of 1950, and a peak demand of from 5.5 million to 6 million kilo- watts is to> be anticipated by December 1952. It is evident, therefore, that the need for additional gen- erating capacity in the region is urgent, even though additions for emergency national defense needs have not been included in the estimate. In addition to Department of Interior and Corps of Engineers' activities, the Federal Government is active in ttie basin through the Rural Electrification Administration. Ninety-seven percent of the farms in the Columbia Basin have electricity, as com- pared to 3 3 percent in 1935. The Rural Electrifi- cation Administration has been directly responsible Ifbr a third of this increase and has indirectly brought al>out the electrification of an additional 65,000 farms by its stimulating effect on the pro- grams of the basin power companies. The REA has loaned 50 million dollars for the construction of 22,000 miles of distribution lines to serve 52,000 rural consumers. Navigation Improvements A total of 600 miles of interconnected navigable waterways exists on the Columbia, Willamette, and Snake Rivers. Oceangoing vessels can proceed on the Columbia or Snake as far as The Dalles and on the Willamette to Portland. Channel depth is 40 feet at the bar at the mouth of the Columbia, 35 feet to Portland, and 30 feet as far as Vancouver. The channel is 27 feet from Vancouver to Bonne- ville Dam. Above Vancouver to The Dalles a depth of 26 feet is available 95 percent of the time.2 On the Willamette minimum channel depths of 8 feet are maintained to Oregon City and 6 feet to Santiam River mouth, thence 5 feet to Albany. Shallow draft barges can proceed seasonally as far as Lewiston, Idaho, on the Snake River, 274 miles above The Dalles (although under hazardous con- ditions) ; and to Harrisburg, on the Willamette. The principal traffic consists of upstream move- ment of petroleum products and downstream movement of wheat, logs, and lumber. Lumber and lumber products represent a third of the total tonnage moving along the lower Columbia. River traffic has increased rapidly since the opening of the Bonneville lock in 1938. Tonnage passed through The Dalles-Celilo Canal in 1949 was about 900,000. Tonnage at Bonneville was l,340,336.3 Facilities for storing and handling grain and petroleum products have been estab- lished at a number of points on the upper part of the system. Water Supply Facilities Approximately 1.5 million people in the Colum- bia River Basin are served by 209 public water supplies derived from both ground and surface sources. Fifty-eight of these supplies are obtained 2 After the completion of McNary Reservoir, now in construction, project depths of the navigation channel from Vancouver, Wash., will be: 27 feet to The Dalles; 7 feet from The Dalles to McNary Dam; 12 feet in McNary Reservoir to a point upstream from Pasco, Wash. * Figures are short tons, and include traffic in both directions. 12 |
