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Show Grand Coulee Dam Full of Water Grand Coulee reservoir man-made man-made body of water in the world, is now brim full of war power, its maximum level. First backed up by the dam in in the spring of 1939, the huge Reclamation reservoir on the Columbia Col-umbia River has finally reached It is 375 feet deep at the dam and extends 151 miles all the way to the Canadian border with an pounding 10,000,000 acre-feet or three and one half trillion gallons of water nearly a 10-year supply for New York City the reservoir is an inexhaustible source of power pow-er for war industry. Nearly 90 percent of the electric elec-tric energy generated by the water-whirled turbines in the Grand Coulee power plant is being transformed trans-formed into ships, chemicals alunminum, ferrosilicon, and other oth-er vital war materials in the Northwest. Bonneville Power Adminstra-tion Adminstra-tion distribution, of which Grand Coullee's energy accounts for the larger portion, now powers about! a quarter of the national output! of aluminum. The production of this silvery airplane metal in the Northwest today exceeds that of the entire country in 1939. Melting snow from mountain ranges in Canada, Idaho, and Montana, and spring rains that trough! Grand Coulee's reservoir to its peak length and height added ad-ded billions of reserve kilowatt-huii.s kilowatt-huii.s to the Reclamation power plant's potency. Water released from the reservoir reser-voir is now driving three of the world's most massive electric generating gen-erating sets. The completed plant will have 15 more of the same size. Each generator Ms a capacity cap-acity of 108,000 kilowats. Three together can provide a metropolis with all its energy needs. The reservoir's water surface is now right at the tops of the dam's 11 great spillway gates in raised position, at elevation 1290. Each of the gates is 135 feet long and they can hold back the top 28 feet of lake. On June 1 they were lowered to let the Columbia River pour over the spillway cre3t of the dam. The spill was hailed as a war-time baptism of the biggest man-made masonry structure and largest, when fully developed, power plant in the world. Besides producing power Grand Coulee reservoir will be used to regulate the flow of the Columbia Colum-bia for downstream power plants as at Bonneville, for improving navigation, and for irrigation. The problem of filling Grand Coulee reservoir never worried engineers. It can be filled several times each year; during June or July, when the Columbia is at flood peak, in one month; at the average -flow of the river, in two months. |