We live 400 miles from one of the wonders of the world, but few of us have been there. It is Grand Coulee Dam. After decades of wanting to see it, I took the opportunity last weekend.

Seeing an icon for the first time is one of life’s great adventures. We approached the dam from behind, and the surrounding landscape is so towering that the dam does not appear to be mammoth. Seeing an icon for the first time is one of life’s great adventures.But when seen from above and downriver, the dam’s size is jaw dropping.

I was prepared to be amazed at the Grand Coulee’s dimensions. Its larger impression on me, however, concerned something entirely different. I gained a renewed respect for the genius of American engineering. Led by Craig Sprankle of the Bureau of Reclamation, my wife and I and our friends the Wistis descended into the dam’s complex nervous system.

Seeing this marvel at a time when national leaders are determined to let our national fabric of public works and national parks atrophy, it is inspiring to see the vestige of an era in which America’s leaders had vision and competence.

Having said that, I must acknowledge that at the time of Grand Coulee’s conception, there was recognition that, without fish ladders, it would stunt salmon spawning by removing 1,000 miles of fish habitat. The Columbia River Packers Association fought the dam.

Flowing away from Grand Coulee and before it receives the water of tributaries, the Columbia River looks to be the size of a large irrigation ditch.

The advent of Grand Coulee marked a regional and national turning point. World War II transformed the Pacific Northwest’s largely agrarian economy, and Grand Coulee was a pivotal engine of that transition. Originally conceived as a reclamation project – to increase irrigable agriculture in Central Washington – the dam’s construction gained an urgency as a power generator with the approach of World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt began the dam’s construction in 1933 as Hitler came to power, two years before Congress would authorize the dam. It generated massive kilowatts for the region’s new shipyards that were building vessels for the war, for aluminum plants that fed aircraft manufacturing and for a top-secret, unnamed project at what would become the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Standing 20 feet away from a turbine in the Grand Coulee Third Powerhouse was a rush. The 81/2-foot thick hollow cylinder of stainless steel turned at 72 rotations per minute and produced 60,000 kilowatts in the 10 minutes we stood in front of it. At the base of the turbine are a set of valves that are opened and shut, depending on the need for electricity.

The rhythms of the dam reflect the cycles of our workday. After a relatively quiet night, Grand Coulee boosts its electrical output to meet the morning peak load, then there is a mid-day lull until the after-work, evening peak. So great is our collective energy demand that the engineers at Grand Coulee can see spikes that signal commercial breaks during the Super Bowl.

Power lines march away from the dam to what’s called a switching station, in which the electricity is switched to various lines, depending on where it’s needed in the region.

Seeing Grand Coulee is a history lesson. The wheelchair that Franklin Roosevelt used in his 1934 visit is on display in the Visitors Center. Seventy-seven men died in the dam’s construction, but none are buried in the dam. That’s an urban myth, spawned by construction workers’ pranks.

Electricity was seen as a way to pay for the reclamation project. But war pre-empted the irrigation project, which didn’t happen until 1952, eventually putting water on up to 700,000 acres.

The engineering of the dam is so precise that Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee backs water up to the Canadian border, but not across it.

There will always be a debate about the side effects of hydropower. However, in the context of global warming, hydroelectricity gains new value. Furthermore, hydropower is much more efficient and precise than thermally-generated electricity. For instance, it takes a full day to bring a thermal generator on line, but it takes 12 seconds for Grand Coulee’s turbines to move from being off to fully on.

– S.A.F.