Grand Coulee Dam (God Moments)

Every so often a storm boils up out over the Pacific and as it moves towards the mainland it gathers steam as the winds are funneled down the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  Eventually, with the power and din of a thousand freight trains, the pressure is unleashed upon the windward flank of Whidbey Island.  Waves thunder.  The rain slashes.  Trees of girth bow - some snap.  Any place else they’d call it a hurricane.  A spectacle both humbling and riveting.  Captivating.  Intimidating.  And invariably beautiful.  All part of the mystique of living in a small corner of creation that I would simply call “Hog Heaven”.  As if any of it were mine to lay label on.

Then, the predictable enters as if unannounced.  The lights dim and then flicker….before they die.  Which is it?  The absolute blackness or the cacophony of sound that touches the soul?  No matter.  At this point, a certain survival instinct has kicked in and something primal suggests that this is simply no night for man nor beast.  Regardless, as candles are being summoned, the moment demands that I pause and ponder.

Grand Coulee Dam’s first electrical generator hummed to life in the chill of January, 1941.  But it was the promise of unlimited water flowing to the rich soil in the arid Columbia River Basin that had emboldened our nation to undertake a project that many had viewed as outlandishly impossible some nine years earlier.  Yes, irrigation was the driving force.  Although employment for countless workers mired in the thralls of the Great Depression was most certainly an alluring prospect for many.  And flood control along the untamed waters of the Columbia was a benefit as well.  Electricity at that time was but a distant afterthought.

But then December 7, 1941, stormed into history and a “date that will live in infamy” established itself.  Suddenly, the cornerstones of our democracy such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms could no longer be taken for granted.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were in jeopardy.  The security of the Free State was imperiled.  Indeed, the American way of life was under attack.  And America went to war.

Overnight, the electricity of Grand Coulee was propelled from luxurious byproduct to wartime necessity.  Power lines carried vast amounts to aluminum plants in Spokane, shipyards in Portland, and a somewhat obscure aircraft company in Seattle by the name of Boeing.  But perhaps the biggest allotments were earmarked for a top secret facility in southeastern Washington where the government was racing to produce plutonium in a life-or-death bid to create the first atomic bomb.

Some would say that Grand Coulee Dam was the single critical factor in determining the outcome of World War II.  Few would argue that the generators didn’t play a pivotal role in the ultimate victory.  A victory that not only preserved a way of life but enhanced it for generations to come.

Funny how things turn out.  And I wonder if there isn’t a God Moment somewhere in that snippet of history playing out over a span of years?

Today, Grand Coulee’s 12 million cubic yards of concrete houses 33 generators with a total capacity of 6,809 megawatts.  That’s a lot of 60 watt bulbs.  But wait….beyond Grand Coulee there are now some 60 other dams within the Columbia River watershed.  Each packing the punch of a thousand freight trains.  Over 36,000 megawatts of generating capacity total.  And that energy is about as clean as energy can be in this fallen world.  And just as the rains fall, the electricity flows.

But to suggest that there hasn’t been a cost would be foolish.  Communities were displaced by the rising waters.  Natural habitat altered.  Environments lost.  At Grand Coulee alone, 82 workers lost there lives in accidents ranging from electrocution to drowning to ill-tempered explosions to heat exhaustion.  Fisheries have declined - some would contend destroyed.  And there is the insidious threat of nuclear contamination at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.  Once state-of-the-art facilities now decay in the slowest of motions but at breakneck speed when compared to the half-life of their residue.  But perhaps most troubling of all, the Nuclear Genie itself has forever been released.

A legacy of consequence regardless of one’s point of view.  And I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a God Moment or two yet to be played out within that ongoing saga?

Ponder I do.  For those periods of darkness have been few in my life span.  Save for those brief occasions when storms have toppled trees onto power lines, I’ve enjoyed the amazing benefits that Grand Coulee and her kind have provided - day in and day out, year after year.  Switches are switched without second thought. 

To an even greater extent, I fear that I take for granted the liberties that this great nation has afforded me.  I write this as I do within the full security of my First Amendment rights.  Indeed, I am allowed, dare I even say encouraged, to pursue happiness in the forms of writing, traveling, and the most childlike of all endeavors, treasure hunting.

And I’m reminded of the costs – past, present, and future.  The truck driver swept into the raging waters as the earth beneath his vehicle gave way.  The salmon that will never strike a young man’s lure.  The daily realization that madmen control nuclear arsenals.  Cultures diminished. The simple accounting in dollars and cents of containing the uncontainable.                

All of it gives pause.  All of it humbles the soul.  All of it shouts of His Greatness and testifies to His Glory.  For indeed, it was no accident that one of man’s greatest achievements came to fruition bearing unintentional benefits at perhaps the most critical juncture of our country’s history.  No, not an accident.  Simply a tiny God Moment played out within the eons.  Just one among so many past.  Just one among so many to come.  Each with the power and din of a thousand freight trains.

Hang on.  The lights just came back on here in Hog Heaven.

Isaiah 55:8-9 - “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
                              neither are your ways my ways,”
                                   declares the Lord.

                        “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
                              so are my ways higher than your ways
                                    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”