Grand Coulee Dam fish ladder, Grand Coulee Dam permanently blocks fish migration, removing over of natural spawning habitat. By largely eliminating anadromous fish above the Okanogan River, the Grand Coulee Dam also set the stage for the subsequent decision not to provide for fish passage at Chief Joseph Dam (built in 1953). Chinook, Steelhead, Sockeye and Coho salmon (as well as other important species including Lamprey) are now unable to spawn in the reaches of the Upper Columbia Basin. The extinction of the spawning grounds upstream from the dam has prevented the Spokane and other tribes from holding the first salmon ceremony. Grand
Grand Coulee Dam in the newspapers, stating exploratory drilling at the Grand Coulee site found no granite on which a dam's foundations could rest, only clay and fragmented rock. This was later disproved with Reclamation-ordered drilling. Ditchers hired General George W. Goethals, engineer of the Panama Canal, to prepare a report. Goethals visited the state and produced a report backing the ditchers. The Bureau of Reclamation was unimpressed by Goethals' report, believing it filled with errors. In , President Warren G. Harding visited Washington state and expressed support for irrigation work there, but died a month later. His successor, Calvin Coolidge, had little