Rock Island Dam: Columbia River, at mile marker 453.4, completed in 1933, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric PUD, second powerhouse completed in 1979, 1184 foot spillway, 31 gates. PUD owned. Chelan and Douglas PUDs combined a fish bypass system with habitat restoration and hatchery programs to mitigate the effects of Rock Island and Rocky Reach Dams on salmon and steelhead.
The Colville confederated tribes of Indians testified before Congress that this dam, built in 1933, damaged their fishery at Kettle Falls. In 1929, they recorded a harvest at the falls of 1,333 fish, which, by 1934, was reduced to just 159 fish.
Rocky Reach Dam: Columbia River, at mile marker 473.7, completed in 1961, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric, PUD owned, additional units completed in 1971, spillway 12 gates.
Wells Dam: Columbia River, at mile marker 515.8, completed in 1967, concrete gravity type, hydroelectric PUD owned, 4460 feet in length, 2 fish ladders. The Wells Fish Hatchery releases 3 million juvenile salmon and steelhead annually. In the 1980s the Douglas County PUD developed a hydrocombine system to keep juvenile salmon from the turbines. According to the PUD, the system resulted in the highest percentage of juvenile surviving to pass through any dam on the Columbia River.
Chief Joseph Dam: Columbia River at mile marker 545.1, completed in 1955, concrete gravity type, federally owned, hydroelectric, spillway 980 feet, 19 gates, 5962 feet long, 236 feet high. At over one mile long it is the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the U.S. It also supplies irrigation water for more than 4500 acres of land. Rufus Woods Lake, the dam’s reservoir, extends 51 miles upstream to Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is named after Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph, the only dam in the Northwest named after an Indian. Chief Joseph spent his last years in exile after the Nez Perce War of 1877 on the Colville Indian Reservation, which borders the north shore of Rufus Woods Lake.
