Cold Springs Dam is an earthen dam northeast of Hermiston and south of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

Umatilla County, Oregon Umatilla County () is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 80,075. Hermiston is the largest city in Umatilla County, but Pendleton remains the county seat. Umatilla County is part of ...

. The dam impounds the water of the

Umatilla River The Umatilla River is an tributary of the Columbia River in northern Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Draining a basin of , it enters the Columbia near the city of Umatilla in the northeastern part of the state. In downstream order, begi ...

to create Cold Springs Reservoir, a component of the Umatilla Basin Project of the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

. Dating from 1908, the first generation of the bureau's projects in the American west, the reservoir supplies irrigation water for local agriculture in this arid and seasonally-cold desert region. The nearby 1927 McKay Dam and McKay Reservoir are part of the same water management project. The reservoir also overlays the

Cold Springs National Wildlife Refuge Cold Springs National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located northeast of Hermiston and south of the Columbia River in Umatilla County, Oregon; The refuge was established in 1909 as a preserve and breeding ground for native ...

, established in 1909. The dam stands high and has a capacity of roughly .

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Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

(HAER) documentation, filed under Hermiston, Umatilla County, OR: ** ** ** {{Authority control Dams in Oregon Reservoirs in Oregon Buildings and structures in Umatilla County, Oregon United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1908 1908 establishments in Oregon Historic American Engineering Record in Oregon Lakes of Umatilla County, Oregon