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Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The third highest hydropower project in the US, at about 1.2 MWatts. Accessible via exit 40 on I-84, you can visit the dam (after passing a friendly guard who will inspect your car) as well as a fish ladder installed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Salmon run in the river almost year-round, but the fall is peak season.
Bonneville Lock and Dam consists of several run-of-the-river dam structures that together complete a span of the Columbia River between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington at River Mile 146.1. The dam is located 40 miles (64 km) east of Portland, Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge. The primary functions of Bonneville Lock and Dam are electrical power generation and river navigation. The dam was built and is managed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. At the time of its construction in the 1930s it was the largest water impoundment project of its type in the nation, able to withstand flooding on an unprecedented scale. Electrical power generated at Bonneville is distributed by the Bonneville Power Administration. Bonneville Dam was named after an adjacent railway station, which in turn was named for United States Army Captain Benjamin Bonneville, an early explorer and fur trader, who never came close to the site. The Bonneville Dam Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1987.
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