Columbia Gorge Discovery Center portrays history of Native people and their relationship with the river and especially the offering of salmons.

Columbia River Gorge is a jewel of Native history, reliance on salmon, power and marvel of engineering
 

By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place

ARLINGTON, Oregon — Things you see in the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area before you get to the Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm in Arlington are impressive, wonders of the creation, really, natural history arrayed engineering marvels.

Native people were here dozens of millennia before the Corps of Discovery, long before those dam engineering feats that generate electricity from the heavy flow of the river and its steep gradient all along the gorge.

The river sustained Native people and, in return, there were ceremonies like first fish and others that praised with thankfulness the offerings of the creation. Native people had their ways of harvesting fish and lamprey from the river, especially from platforms using dip nets at Celilo Falls during annual run of Kings, Sockeyes, Coho, Chums and lamprey.

The Columbia River Discovery Center at The Dalles has historical film footage — montage documentary produced by Oregon State University — of Native fishermen dip netting for salmons on platforms extending from the shore into the river at the erstwhile Celilo Falls.

There was a time when 30 million salmons and steelheads, this according to researcher Candace Colloway Whiting, would return from the Pacific Ocean to the Columbia and other estuaries in the region. Sustenance for the Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla and Nez Perce was plentiful and an abundant for trading dried and smoked salmon.

William Dietrich, writing in “Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia Rivers,” determined that “Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent.”

Others, from the push of Manifest Destiny, came and erected mammoth fish wheels in the river that scooped salmon to supply canneries. Fish wheels created competitive disadvantages for Native people.

In 1957, Celilo Falls was flooded by the federal government to make way for The Dalles Dam. It would be dams and locks that turned the Columbia River into a transportation corridor. Barges and boats are seen on the river moving goods to and from the Pacific Ocean.

The current Celilo Village, just off the I-84 exit and across railroad tracks, is result of a five-year, $12.5 million development of the Army Corps of Engineers approved by Congress. An 8,000-square-foot longhouse is part of the project, 14 new homes and infrastructure replaced what was formerly here.

On the other side of the interstate, Celilo Park has boat ramps on the river; fulfilling fishing rights agreed to in the treaty that Native people signed in 1855 with the United States.

This morning is quiet. Only two people are seen. Two men are in an older green pick-up truck. They have stopped to gather mail from community mailboxes. Otherwise, much is seen that this is a place where fishermen and hunters live. There are several skiffs, larger fishing boats and pastel-colored gillnets hanging on fences.

In one garage, pelts are hung to dry and the carcass of what looks like a skinned deer hangs upside down. There is a large smokehouse at the end of the village, next to a playground. There is a sign —red lettering on a black background — in the picture window of a house offering “Smoked Salmon for Sale.”

Hope of an interview, someone from Celilo Village talking about history and another gathering of Chronicles of the Welcome Table, did not happen on the return trip from Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm.

Dams and locks, as controversial as they are to naturalists and preservationists, those wanting to protect ways of Native people, met an ever-increasing need for power, then and now. There are 14 mainstream dams on the Columbia between British Columbia and Oregon, according to a posting on the Wikipedia Web site, with total capacity of 24,149 megawatts.

Nowadays hatcheries assist the natural process of procreating fish. Bonneville Dam and Locks has a fish hatchery and a visitor center where you can view fish swimming up a migration ladder.

There are as many as 40 wineries along both sides of the river. Grain, livestock, lumber, fruits and vegetables are produced not too far from the river in the fertile Willamette Valley.

Not that far into the gorge, wind farms begin to appear on each side of the river, Washington to the north and Oregon south, planted above, on the Columbia Plateau, elevations ranging from 4000 to 6000 feet.

Arlington is 136 miles east of Portland on I-84. Overnight stay is at the Village Inn Motel. The innkeeper is a jolly guy who cracks jokes about food in the nearby restaurant. Punch lines borrowed from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Rattlesnake, the wind farm, is located 2 miles from the one traffic light in Arlington and another 4 miles along the bumpy, barely improved Rattlesnake Road.

The four seasons sequence in and out of the high desert. It is overcast today with rain. Rolling hillsides are covered in straw-colored vegetation. In spring and summer, hillsides are awash in green and then seasonally wheat fields become amber waves of grain.

The appointment is at 10 for an interview with Nick VanHollebeke, assistant operations manager of Rattlesnake Road Wind Farm. Rattlesnake and the adjoining West Wheatfield Wind Farm are owned by Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy. Horizon is owned by Portugal-based EDP Renovaveis, the fourth largest wind company in the world.

Rattlesnake, 49 wind turbines, came on line in December 2008. West Wheatfield began sending juice to the Bonneville Power Administration grid from its 46 turbines in April 2009. Combined, 200 megawatts are produced at peak capacity.

Why wind energy is the simple question in the transitional greening of the U.S. economy?

“It’s a clean, renewable source of energy,” said VanHollebeke. “If the wind is blowing, they create power.”

Why the popularity of wind-generated electricity?

“People are finally screaming for renewable energy that is not going to cost them too much,” VanHollebeke said. “Wind renewable energy has a fairly low impact on the environment, fairly low footprint on the environment. The new administration in Washington is pushing for renewable energy.”

The turbines of Rattlesnake are positioned over 30 acres of an 8,000-acree farm owned by a family whose name has the name of a nearby town. Wheat and cattle are their choice of agriculture here in northern central Oregon, just across the river from the state of Washington.

The turbines, with parts manufactured at disparate plants, are assembled by Suzlon, an India-based company. Each turbine is 80 meters or a 240-foot tower and another 160 feet at the tip of the blade.

Wind farm sites are determined by setting up a meteorological tower, tracking wind patterns for a year or two. Prevailing winds here, VanHollebeke said, are from the west.

Yesterday, weather reports warned of 84 mile-per-hour winds along the coast. The turbines generate electricity at cut-in speeds of 10 miles per hour and shutdown when winds exceed 50 miles per hour.

“The meteorological study determines if the site is a good enough resource to put the turbines up,” VanHollebeke said. “If the turbines are too close, they will catch the wake from the turbine in front of it.”

Companies that constructed wind farms in Oregon and across the U.S. received a jolt in June 2009 from more than $500 million from the Obama administration’s economic recovery program. The West Wheat Field project was awarded $47.7 million.

According to the White House Web site, President Obama’s energy and environment policy is to “drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” According to projections by the U.S. Department of Labor, “1.9 million new jobs could be created across the United States within the renewable energy sphere.”

The cash grants are intended to defray costs and jumpstart renewable wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy projects while providing jobs. Providing jobs is the operative word for VanHollebeke, who spent seven years in the U.S. Navy before joining Horizon in September 2008.

He left the Navy as a lieutenant with experience as a surface warfare officer. He saw duty on cruisers and destroyers. VanHollebeke is from Kennewick, Washington, one of the nearby Tri-cities.

“Getting out of the Navy, I was looking for a job and wanted to do something interesting,” he said. “I am from this region and wanted to be in this region. To be honest with you, this job kind of just fell into my lap.

“I didn’t get out of Navy knowing that I would be doing this new and interesting work,” he said. “Not a lot of people get to do this kind of work; so here I am. It’s been a pretty intense learning experience. It involves a lot of technology. I have been given responsibility over a large asset that has a significant dollar value.”

His job requires overseeing maintenance, which is provided under a five-year warranty with turbine manufacturer Suzlon, quality assurance and quality control.

“I make sure maintenance is being done correctly,” VanHollebeke said. “Turbines have a lot of moving parts and a lot of different components. Infrastructure, cables to grid, is my domain. It’s a constant learning experience.”

VanHollebeke knows he is at the forefront of the emerging green economy.

“Some have been in this industry since the beginning, but they are few and far between,” he said. “It’s a relatively new industry that requires a new learning experience every day.”

Wind farms, like this one operated by Houston-based Horizon Energy in Oregon, are rising up on both sides of the Columbia River. (Photo courtesy Nick VanHollebeke)