The Hells Canyon Case 139 



only about 30 per cent of the total capacity of the system upon 

 completion of the initial plan of development.^ 



The Idaho Power Company three-dam development will occupy 

 lands of the United States government and will pre-empt the site 

 for the "High" Hells Canyon Dam, which represented a key struc- 

 ture in the U. S. Corps of Engineers' main control plan for the 

 comprehensive development of the Columbia River and tributary 

 system. 3 The plan for comprehensive development as proposed in 

 the Engineers' original plan* would provide a system of reservoirs 

 having 26,990,000 acre-feet of storage in order to limit stream flows 

 to 800,000 feet per second at The Dalles — the focal point for the 

 system — under conditions comparable to the 1894 "flood of record." 

 The system of interrelated projects originally proposed is shown in 

 Table 19. 



Opposition to the Glacier View project, because of its estimated 

 adverse effect on Glacier National Park, resulted in its elimination 

 from present plans for the main control features of the Columbia 

 tributary system. Proposals for substituting storage at other sites 

 for the deficiency caused by abandoning the Glacier View site call 

 for increasing the storage at Libby from the 4,250,000 acre-feet 

 originally planned to 5,010,000 acre-feet, and for finding suitable 

 alternative storage to eliminate the remaining deficiency. In addi- 

 tion, as a result of the difference in the storage planned for the 

 original High Hells Canyon Dam and the alternate three-dam, 

 plan of the Idaho Power Company, approximately 1,300,000 acre- 

 feet will need to be found to maintain the integrity of the main 

 control plan. 



It is apparent from the record that control of the flood flows of 

 the Columbia River may be possible under a number of different 

 combinations of projects distributed among the major streams of 

 the Basin. It is not evident nor likely, however, that any combina- 

 tion will provide a system of comparable flood control at costs the 

 same as or less than the main control plan originally proposed.^ 

 Moreover, the flood control plan represents only one of the inter- 

 dependent purposes which the multiple purpose Hells Canyon 



' FPC, Decision, op. cit., p. 23. 

 ^ Ibid., p. 8, and Finding No. 80, p. 60. 



* Columbia River and Tributaries, Northwestern United States, House Docu- 

 ment No. 531, 81st Congress, 2nd Session, March 20, 1950. 

 •FPC, Transcript of Hearings, op. cit., pp. 13,488, 13,496, 13,507, 13,515. 



