The following is an excerpt from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Part II, History of the Walla Walla District, 1970-1975
| COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
The communities along the reservoir, in conjunction with their county governments, have formed public port districts and are actively promoting landside facilities for taking advantage of the commercial navigation on the river. Lands designated for 12 public port terminals around the reservoir total 300 acres. In addition, 3,000 acres of project lands adjacent to the reservoir at 12 locations have been designated for industrial use and have a direct effect upon the private lands shore-ward of this Federal margin. During the project construction period Oregon State was actively promoting the Boardman space-age industrial park. It was their very firm conviction that much of the success of the venture depended upon an adequate frontage on the John Day reservoir. Accordingly, after extensive negotiations, over 1,000 acres of project lands along 8 miles of the waterfront west of Boardman were sold to the state for that future development.
The public port terminal areas are well distributed around the reservoir perimeter, with seven in Washington and five in Oregon. Grain elevators and transshipping facilities were the first to develop at Arlington and Umatilla, Oregon and Paterson, Washington. Other facilities and additional grain and petroleum storage should follow now that the reservoir is in being.
Columbia River commercial traffic was not impeded by the construction effort to a measurable extent except for the four-month period in 1968 when preparations for raising the pool were underway. Movement on the river past the dam has been fairly uniform, awaiting opening up of the Snake River area as shown in the following summary:
Calendar year
1965 1,802,200 tons
1966 1,688,230 tons
1967 1,920,566 tons
1968 1,283,165 tons
1969 1,861,430 tons
1970 2,285,567 tons |
