The World’s Biggest Dam Proposed for Priest Rapids
An industrial visionary outlines plans for a massive hydroelectric and nitrogen-fixation project that could transform the Columbia Basin into a powerhouse of chemical production.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mr. Pierce announced his plans for a ninety-foot dam at Priest Rapids, which he claims will be over two miles long—the largest in the world, surpassing the Assouan dam in Egypt. Beyond electricity, the project includes an $8,000,000 factory to produce chemical fertilizer using revolutionary European nitrogen-fixation and phosphoric acid processes. Pierce, who has spent fifteen years on the project, faces a hearing on May 14 to address protests from Columbia River salmon-fishing interests, who fear the dam will block spawning grounds. However, Pierce believes he can convince regulators that the project can coexist with the river's fish population.
“The Priest Rapids dam... will be more than two miles long, the largest dam in the world when it is completed.”
This 1924 report details the early ambitions for the Priest Rapids site, decades before the actual completion of the modern Priest Rapids Dam. The struggle between industrial power generation and the survival of Columbia River salmon remains a defining and ongoing ecological and legal conflict in Washington state.
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