Well there is a long list of historical events that have taken place or impacted the Columbia River. First off, the Columbia has altered its course along time ago, when a glacier blocked its flow path. The river flowed over the glacier and down into a place now titled Dry Falls, it then joined up with its previous channel and out to the Pacific Ocean. After the glacier receded, the river took its old course. Later on, approximately 12,800 years later, dams entered the region. The dams entered the river to help with irrigation, power generation and control the flow of the river to reduce flooding. This mainly took place during the Great Depression to help people find work. Finally, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was established in 1942. Using the power generated from Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams. This reservation is 670 sqmi and was used to develop nuclear warfare in the middle of WWII. Long since, there has been a Hanford Clean-up enacted by the US government to try and clean-up the waste that has been generated by this site. For more information on the history of the Columbia River, please see the following site, it is where I got all my information thus far, for this page: http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Default.asp.
