Why would anyone expend the resources simply to pump water up and let it run off a cliff, particularly lots of water? That seems at best quixotic and at worst gratuitously wasteful. Well, it was unquestionably wasteful, but the costs were considered minor at the time. The falling water represents the distributary stream, the so-called Main Canal, for Banks Lake, the reservoir for the Columbia Basin (Irrigation) Project. Banks Lake is filled by water pumped up from the Columbia River by power from Grand Coulee Dam. As far as possible,…
