Coulee Dam City Map Poster

About Coulee Dam

Grand Coulee Dam is a concrete gravity dam long and high, containing of material. The volume of the dam is . Its crest elevation is above sea level while its lowest foundation rests at above sea level. It contains 2,790,000 cubic yards (2,200,000 m3) of concrete and 1/4 million tons (400 kt) of steel reinforcement. The reservoir it creates when combined with Chief Joseph Dam upstream has a storage capacity for water equal to that contained in Lake Erie or five times that held by Lake Mead on the Colorado River near Las Vegas; however Grand Coulee's annual discharge averages only about one-third as much as either lake receives annually from their respective river systems: , respectively. The powerplant houses three generators rated at 605 MW each which can produce an average output exceeding 4 billion kilowatt hours per year—enough electricity for more than two million homes per year—and has an effective hydraulic head around .