The Columbia River begins in British Columbia, Canada, and winds its way through Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean, draining an area about the size of France. Our navigation mission on the Columbia River dates back to 1866.
Today, the authorized Columbia River between Vancouver, Wash. and The Dalles, Ore. project includes a deep-draft navigation channel and pile dike structures which stabilize the channel. The 300-foot-wide navigation channel is authorized to be 27 feet deep, but currently maintained to 17-foot depth, considered adequate for current users (primarily tug and barge traffic). The channel generally follows the Oregon-Washington border and extends 83.2 miles from the upstream limit of the Columbia and Lower Willamette rivers ship channel at Vancouver, Wash. (a separate project) to the The Dalles, Ore. The project also includes several side channels developed to capitalize on the economy of navigating the Columbia River.
The navigation channel is very important to the regional and national economy. This project supports $1.9 billion worth of U.S. products and 8.4 million tons of cargo annually (five-year average from 2013-2017). The Columbia River system is the largest wheat and barley export gateway in the nation and the third largest grain export gateway in the world. Each year, barging keeps 700,000 trucks off the highways that run through the sensitive airshed of the Columbia River Gorge. To maximize efficiency, many products are moved in bulk by barge and then transferred to even larger ships in the lower Columbia River for export overseas. Barges also carry critical products such as petroleum upriver to inland ports.
The Corps of Engineers does not maintain recreation facilities as part of this project. Please stay off the pile dikes as they are hazardous and not intended for recreational use. Nearby recreational facilities fall under the jurisdiction of private, local or state agencies.