|
There are fifty-five major hydroelectric projects located on the Columbia River
and its tributaries. Thirty are federal dams owned an operated by the Corps
of Engineers or Bureau of Reclamation. Twenty-five are non-federal installations
owned by various public and private utilities. These (and smaller dams not shown)
give the Pacific Northwest the largest hydroelectric system in the world.
One of the principal tasks of these dams is power generation supplying low-cost
electric power to the people and industries of the Pacific Northwest. As power
producers, dams use the hydrologic cycle, a constantly renewable resource, to
slow the rate of depletion of fossil fuels. Northwest hydropower is delivered
over the transmission grid of the Bonneville Power Administration and the
interconnected lines of non-federal utilities for distribution to the
consumer or for sale directly to industry.
|
Multi-Purpose Dams 
