While the debate over power and salmon intensifies, Grand Coulee continues the workhorse tradition it has upheld for almost 60 years. And it's the lifeblood of a remote speck of Washington state. The dam itself operates with little fanfare. Water pours through pipes and falls 330 feet to the powerhouse below, turning 24 giant waterwheels, or turbines. These spinning turbines turn big magnets inside a ring of copper up to 120 times a minute to produce electricity.
Transformers deliver the electricity to a metal forest of power poles atop a nearby hill.
There, the Bonneville Power Administration ships the electricity mostly to Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Dave Lyngholm, Grand Coulee's power manager, says that the coming summer will test the huge dam and the West Coast's entire electricity grid. This is going to be a year of tough decisions.