Waneta dam - Pend d'Oreille River, BC, Canada
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T0SHEA
N 49° 00.224 W 117° 37.098
11U E 454779 N 5428054
Coordinates are for a walkway on the railroad bridge west of the dam, which is the best viewpoint available.
Waymark Code: WMFV24
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 12/01/2012
Views: 2
This concrete dam on the Pend d’Oreille River is 64m high and 290m long. Built by Cominco Ltd. in 1954, it was built to supplement their Brilliant Dam on the Kootenay River west of Castlegar. Two thirds of its output is used by Cominco (Now Teck Cominco) in its Trail smelter. The rest supplies local needs. There is a second 15 km 230 kv transmission line running to the border allowing the sale of surplus output to the US.
The dam houses 3 - 72 MW and 1 - 76.5 MW generator, for a total capacity of 292.5 MW (Mega Watts). In 2010 the construction of a second powerhouse to increase the capacity of the dam by 435 MW was begun, and will be online by 2015. In the pictures, the addition can be seen to the left of the dam.