Cowlitz Falls Dam is a 70
megawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
hydroelectric dam in
Lewis County, Washington
Lewis County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 82,149. The county seat is Chehalis, and its largest city is Centralia. Lewis County comprises the Centralia, WA Micropolitan Stati ...
. It was constructed in the early 1990s and completed in 1994. The dam is high and wide.
Its reservoir, Lake Scanewa, is located at the confluence of the
Cowlitz River
The Cowlitz River is a river in the state of Washington in the United States, a tributary of the Columbia River. Its tributaries drain a large region including the slopes of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens.
The Cowlitz has a d ...
and
Cispus River
The Cispus River is about long and flows into the Cowlitz River at Lake Scanewa in the Cascade Range of Washington. Its tributaries drain most of south-central and southeastern Lewis County, extreme northeast Skamania County, and some of wester ...
downstream of
Randle, Washington with a surface area of about 700 acres.
The Cowlitz Falls Project impounds the
Cowlitz River
The Cowlitz River is a river in the state of Washington in the United States, a tributary of the Columbia River. Its tributaries drain a large region including the slopes of Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens.
The Cowlitz has a d ...
and produces on average 260 gigawatthours annually for the local public utility, the Lewis County
Public Utility District, or about one-third of its annual electrical needs.
The facility was developed jointly with the
Bonneville Power Administration
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to cons ...
, and the BPA bears the direct cost of operating and maintaining the dam.
See also
*
List of dams in the Columbia River watershed
There are more than 60 dams in the Columbia River watershed in the United States and Canada. Tributaries of the Columbia River and their dammed tributaries, as well as the main stem itself, each have their own list below. The dams are listed i ...
References
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Dams in Washington (state)
Reservoirs in Washington (state)
United States local public utility dams
Hydroelectric power plants in Washington (state)
Dams completed in 1994
Energy infrastructure completed in 1994