Grand Coulee filled by pumps from the Grand Coulee Dam and forms the first leg of a irrigation system. Canals, siphons, and more dams are used throughout the Columbia Basin, supplying over of farm land. Water has turned the Upper Coulee and surrounding region into a haven for wildlife, including bald eagles. Recreation is a side benefit and includes several lakes, mineral springs, hunting and fishing, and water sports of all kinds. Sun Lakes and Steamboat Rock state parks are both found in the Grand Coulee. However, the lake has also flooded a large area of natural habitat and native hunting grounds,
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