The ditchers took several steps to ensure support for their proposals. In 1921, WWPC secured a preliminary permit to build a dam at Kettle Falls, about upstream from the Grand Coulee. If built, the Kettle Falls Dam would have lain in the path of the Grand Coulee Dam's reservoir, essentially blocking its construction. WWPC planted rumors 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 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.