Photo By Marcy Sanchez | On July 10, 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, celebrated...... read more read more
Half a century after the final navigation lock opened the Snake River to Lewiston, Idaho, the Lower Granite Lock and Dam remains an engineering achievement, making possible the 465-mile navigable waterway stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers.
On July 10, 2025, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District, celebrated the 3,200-feet-long dam’s 50 years of service to the Pacific Northwest along with the generations of people who made it possible.
Authorized under the 1945 Rivers and Harbors Act and completed in 1975, Lower Granite Lock and Dam was the last of four Corps dams to be built on the lower Snake River. It became the final link in the nation's furthest inland waterway, allowing barge traffic to move between Lewiston and the Pacific Ocean.
Jim Harris, one of the early dam operators, remembers it well. “It was still just a hole in the wall when I got here,” he recalled during the 50th anniversary celebration. “From the beginning, this place and its people made something special.”
Constructed amid rugged terrain and logistical complexity, Lower Granite soon became indispensable. The six-turbine powerhouse generates up to 810 megawatts of hydroelectricity (enough to power between 540,000 to 720,000 homes,) and its navigation lock has facilitated the movement of millions of tons of wheat, timber, and other cargo, reinforcing the region’s economic backbone.
"This is the best place I ever worked," recalled Kenneth McIntyre, a former fish researcher who served on multiple dams throughout the Northwest, including the Juvenile Fish Facility at Lower Granite Lock and Dam while employed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “I felt like we were doing something that mattered.”
Over the decades, innovation at Lower Granite evolved beyond engineering, reconfiguring fish ladders, investing in state-of-the-art bypass systems, and implementing one of the region’s most advanced passive integrated transponder (PIT)-tagging operations.
"When I first got here, fish passage was literally a pipe underground," said McIntyre, who began fish research at Lower Granite in the late 1970s and returned for six seasons after retirement. “Now it’s a complex facility that gives returning adults and juveniles a better chance at survival.”
McIntyre emphasized that progress wasn’t just in appearance, as the safety culture has also shifted. “Safety has changed dramatically. The juvenile fish facility used to be pretty dangerous—now everything is built with employee well-being in mind. That shift matters to the employees and their families.”
One longtime project manager described overseeing transitions from rewinding failing Westinghouse windings in the 1980s to pioneering performance benchmarking with the Bonneville Power Administration in the 2000s. “We weren’t just spending money, we were proving performance,” he said.
As the first dam that juvenile salmon pass and the last for returning adults, Lower Granite plays a critical role in fish migration. Innovations like the Removable Spillway Weir (RSW), developed here in 2001, earned accolades for mimicking natural river flows. More recently, the installation of a PIT-tag detection array, the largest of its kind in the Columbia-Snake system, has enabled researchers to monitor fish that bypass traditional routes, supporting both recovery planning and hatchery logistics.
McIntyre added, “Research and innovation are constant here. I came back because I believed in the mission—and the people.”
Lower Granite’s navigation lock moves nearly 1.5 million tons of cargo annually—mostly grain, petroleum, and timber. As part of the West Coast’s furthest inland seaport system, it ensures farmers, processors, and shippers have reliable, cost-effective access to global markets.
This year’s celebration welcomed colleagues, retirees, and families to gather and reconnect, as the celebration included a town hall, awards ceremony and picnic at nearby Boyer Park.
When asked what brought him back to celebrate the event, McIntyre said, “The people… this is the fourth generation of employees at Lower Granite. Each [generation] builds on the last.”
The 1975 Lower Granite opening day remarks of Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus to an audience of 800 from the deck of a steam-powered sternwheeler, still echo today celebrating the creation of the West Coast’s furthest inland port. The celebration reminded all attendees that Lower Granite isn’t just a dam but a testament to the USACE mission of delivering engineering solutions for the nation’s toughest challenges.
| Date Taken: | 08.04.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.04.2025 13:01 |
| Story ID: | 544690 |
| Location: | CLARKSTON, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 34 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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