Grant County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 99,123. The county seat is Ephrata, and the largest city is Moses Lake. The county was formed out of Douglas County in February 1909 and is named for U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
The Columbia Basin Project in Central Washington, United States, is the irrigation network that the Grand Coulee Dam makes possible. It is the largest water reclamation project in the United States, supplying irrigation water to over 670,000 acres (2,700 km2) of the 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) large project area, all of which was originally intended to be supplied and is still classified irrigable and open for the possible enlargement of the system. Water pumped from the Columbia River is carried over 331 miles (533 km) of main canals, stored in a number of reservoirs, then fed into 1,339 miles (2,155 km) of lateral irrigation canals, and out into 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of drains and wasteways. The Grand Coulee Dam, powerplant, and various other parts of the CBP are operated by the Bureau of Reclamation. There are three irrigation districts in the project area, which operate additional local facilities.
The Colville Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in the northwest United States, in north central Washington, inhabited and managed by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is federally recognized.
Kettle Falls was an ancient and important salmon fishing site on the upper reaches of the Columbia River, in what is today the U.S. state of Washington, near the Canada–US border. The falls consisted of a series of rapids and cascades where the river passed through quartzite rocks deposited by prehistoric floods on a substrate of Columbia River basalt. The river dropped nearly 50 feet (15 m), and the sound of the falls could be heard for miles away. Kettle Falls was inundated in 1940, as the waters of the reservoir Lake Roosevelt rose behind Grand Coulee Dam, permanently flooding the site.
Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking industry, copper, zinc, and energy. Secondary products include lead, silver, gold, molybdenum, germanium, indium and cadmium. Teck Resources was formed from the amalgamation of Teck and Cominco in 2001.
Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area that encompasses the 130-mile (210 km) long Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake between Grand Coulee Dam and Northport, Washington, in eastern Washington state. The Grand Coulee Dam was built on the Columbia River in 1941 as part of the Columbia River Basin project. Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is a unit of the National Park Service and provides opportunities for fishing, swimming, canoeing, boating, hunting, camping, and visiting historic Fort Spokane and St. Paul's Mission. Crescent Bay Lake in Grant County just southwest of Lake Roosevelt also falls under the jurisdiction of the National Recreation Area.
The American Falls Dam is a concrete gravity-type dam in the western United States, located near American Falls, Idaho, on river mile 714.7 of the Snake River. The dam and reservoir are a part of the Minidoka Project on the Snake River Plain and are used primarily for flood control, irrigation, and recreation. When the original dam was built in the 1920s by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the residents of American Falls were forced to relocate three-quarters of their town to make room for the reservoir.
State Route 25 (SR 25), named the Coulee Reservoir Highway, is a 121.17-mile-long (195.00 km) state highway serving communities in Lincoln and Stevens counties in the U.S. state of Washington. The highway begins at an intersection with U.S. Route 2 (US 2) east of Davenport and continues northwest to cross the Spokane River. From there, SR 25 parallels the Columbia River and Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake upstream through several small communities, passing the Gifford–Inchelium Ferry, to Kettle Falls. In Kettle Falls, the roadway intersects US 395, co-signed with SR 20 and continues north to Northport, where former SR 251 is intersected and SR 25 crosses the Columbia River on the Northport Bridge. The highway travels northwest to the Canadian border, where it becomes British Columbia Highway 22 (BC 22).
The Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge is an important breeding area for mammals, birds, and other animals. The National Wildlife Refuge is located on land surrounding Lake Lowell, just outside Nampa, Idaho. It serves as a resting and wintering area for birds, including mallards and Canada geese, along the Pacific Flyway and was named a "Globally Important Bird Area" by the American Bird Conservancy.
Drumheller Channels National Natural Landmark showcases the Drumheller Channels, which are the most significant example in the Columbia Plateau of basalt butte-and-basin Channeled Scablands. This National Natural Landmark is an extensively eroded landscape, located in south central Washington state characterized by hundreds of isolated, steep-sided hills (buttes) surrounded by a braided network of numerous channels, all but one of which are currently dry. It is a classic example of the tremendous erosive powers of extremely large floods such as those that reformed the Columbia Plateau volcanic terrain during the late Pleistocene glacial Missoula Floods.
Crab Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of Washington. Named for the presence of crayfish, it is one of the few perennial streams in the Columbia Basin of central Washington, flowing from the northeastern Columbia River Plateau, roughly 5 km (3.1 mi) east of Reardan, west-southwest to empty into the Columbia River near the small town of Beverly. Its course exhibits many examples of the erosive powers of extremely large glacial Missoula Floods of the late Pleistocene, which scoured the region. In addition, Crab Creek and its region have been transformed by the large-scale irrigation of the Bureau of Reclamation's Columbia Basin Project (CBP), which has raised water table levels, significantly extending the length of Crab Creek and created new lakes and streams.
Banks Lake is a 27-mile (43 km) long reservoir in central Washington in the United States.
Jackson Lake Dam is a concrete and earth-fill dam in the western United States, at the outlet of Jackson Lake in northwestern Wyoming. The lake and dam are situated within Grand Teton National Park in Teton County. The Snake River emerges from the dam and flows about eight hundred miles (1,300 km) through Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to its mouth on the Columbia River in eastern Washington.
The Sanpoil River is a tributary of the Columbia River, in the U.S. state of Washington. The river is named for the Sanpoil, the Interior Salish people who live along the river course. The name is from the Okanagan term [snpʕʷílx], meaning "people of the gray country", or "gray as far as one can see".
Dry Falls Dam is a rockfaced earthfill type dam in the U.S. state of Washington. Located in Grant County near Coulee City, it was built as part of the Bureau of Reclamation's Columbia Basin Project. Water from the Columbia River, impounded by Grand Coulee Dam, is pumped into Grand Coulee, a formerly dry canyon, through the short Feeder Canal. Grand Coulee's north end is sealed by North Dam and Dry Falls Dam stretches across the midsection of the Coulee. This allows the water pumped from the Columbia River to fill the upper Grand Coulee, creating a large equalizing reservoir known as Banks Lake. Water from the reservoir is fed into the irrigation project's Main Canal, which runs south from Dry Falls Dam to another reservoir called Billy Clapp Lake, formed by Pinto Dam.
The Trail Smelter dispute was a trans-boundary pollution case involving the federal governments of both Canada and the United States, which eventually contributed to establishing the harm principle in the environmental law of transboundary pollution.
Pinto Dam is a dam in Grant County, Washington.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to infrastructure of the U.S. state of Washington.
Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals is a citizen lawsuit filed under the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) by Joseph A. Pakootas and Donald R. Michel brought to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington against Teck Cominco—, now Teck Resources—which is headquartered in Canada. Pakootas and Michel filed the suit The plaintiffs, Pakootas and Michel, were enrolled members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation who, under CERCLA's citizen suit provision filed the suit to enforce the "Unilateral Administrative Order for Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study (UAO) issued to the defendant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
