Banks Lake Banks Lake Banks Lake is a long reservoir in central Washington in the United States. Part of the Columbia Basin Project, Banks Lake occupies the northern portion of the Grand Coulee, a formerly dry coulee near the Columbia River, formed by the Missoula Floods during the Pleistocene epoch. Grand Coulee Dam, built by the United States Bureau of Reclamation on the Columbia River created Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake, the reservoir on the river behind the dam. The surface of Lake Roosevelt is several hundred feet above the original Columbia River, making it easier to pump water up and out of
Coulee Coulee </div> Coulee, or coulée ( or ) is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word "coulee" comes from the Canadian French "coulée", from the French word "couler" meaning "to flow". The term is often used interchangeably in the Great Plains for any number of water features, from ponds to creeks. In southern Louisiana the word "coulée" (also spelled "coolie") originally meant a gully or ravine usually dry or intermittent but becoming sizable during rainy weather. As stream channels were dredged or canalized, the term