In 1952 the United States Army Corp of Engineers began work on The Dalles Dam along the Columbia River, straddling the border of the states of Washington and Oregon.  The dam was completed and online by 1957 and the resulting impounded waters of which submerged the Columbia’s Celilo Falls.  Celilo Falls was, is and continues to be a location of great tribal significance for the Native Americans of the area.  The falls were considered to be sacred and functioned as one of the largest (if not the largest) Native fishing locations in the Pacific Northwest.  But even the historical and cultural significance aside, Celilo Falls was noteworthy if only for the fact that prior to being submerged, it was both the widest and most voluminous (on average) waterfall in all of North America.  Because of The Dalles Dam, this feature of global and cultural significance has essentially been lost for several generations.

There have been many pushes over the years to restore the falls to their natural state, but none have come anywhere close to fruition.  However, with the emergence of “going green” as both a political and pop culture mindset in the last several years, the idea of restoring Celilo Falls to its natural state may just become more realistic than it ever has in the past.  Some have suggested at least temporarily restoring the falls by drawing down the impounded waters behind The Dalles Dam, but such concepts have been met with resistance at the federal level and have largely gone ignored and unanswered.  The fact that The Dalles Dam has passed its half-century mark now, however, may start to sway opinions in the other direction.  Grassroots movements have started to emerge with a push towards restoration of the falls, which will hopefully gain momentum in the coming years.  The proposed formation of a Mount Hood National Park nearby could potentially also put pressure on the right people to start seriously considering the idea of restoring Celilo Falls.

In 2006 voters in Washington State passed Initiative 937, which mandated that by the year 2020, the state must acquire 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources.  Hydroelectric generation, however, was not a renewable source that qualified for this bill (oddly, considering it is by far the most abundant renewable form of energy in the Pacific Northwest).  This means the State of Washington, for its part, has incentive to push forward energy projects which could potentially replace the loss of generating capacity that would result in the decommissioning and removal of The Dalles Dam such as wind and solar farms.  The chances of the dam being removed by 2020 are completely nonexistent, but this sort of focus on renewable sources may push government agencies towards thinking about the impact that large-scale hydro projects such as those along the Columbia River and whether it may be possible to avoid the pitfalls (destroying Salmon runs, population displacement, submerging of notable cultural and geological features, etc) associated with them.

Further, starting in June of 2011, the US National Park Service began the largest dam removal project in the history of the United States in Washington where both the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams are being removed from the Elwha River near Port Angeles.  The Elwha was historically known to have one of the most abundant Salmon migrations in the Northwest, and when the dams were built they reduced the spawning area for the fish from as much as 35 miles to a mere 4 miles.  The simple fact that both the government and public are not only amenable to such a project, but fully support the removal of significant dams like these should signal that the concept is not as far fetched as may initially seem.  We may one day see Celilo Falls flowing again.