Sims Corner Eskers and Kames million years ago. These lava flows have been extensively exposed by the erosion resulting from the Missoula Floods, which laid bare many layers of the basalt flows on the edges of the plateau at Grand Coulee and Moses Coulee. Two million years ago the Pleistocene epoch began and ice age glaciers invaded the area. They scoured the Columbia River Plateau, reaching as far south as the middle of the Waterville Plateau highlands above the Grand Coulee and south to the head of Moses Coulee. In some areas north of the Grand Coulee they were as much as 3 km (10,000
Grand Coulee Dam interest in irrigation projects. The Bureau of Reclamation, desirous of a major project that would bolster its reputation, was focusing on the Boulder Canyon Project that resulted in the Hoover Dam. Reclamation was authorized to conduct a study in 1923, but the project's cost made federal officials reluctant. The Washington state proposals received little support from those further east, who feared the irrigation would result in more crops, depressing prices. With President Coolidge opposed to the project, bills to appropriate money for surveys of the Grand Coulee site failed. In 1925, Congress authorized a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study