Researcher(s):
Hannah Smay Katie Kelly Aphelion Crampton Katie-Lauren Dunbar
ENVS course(s): 330 Initiated: March 2016 Completed: April 2016 Go to project site
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Our project built upon a project from the ENVS 220 class of 2015 regarding the Bonneville Dam as a Hybrid Object. We examined the Bonneville Dam under the framework of the longevity of human structures and evolution of their narratives. In terms of modern structures with physical and symbolic might, like the temples and monuments that remain on our earth from civilizations past, dams rank high. While social change in the 20th Century has altered both the perceptions and functions of dams, we wondered how other types of change can alter the functions of stories of structures like dams. This was the framing question of our study: how are high profile human structures (such as federal dams) are managed to adapt over time?
The Bonneville Lock and Dam is located within the Cascadia Subduction Zone and is therefore prone to megathrust earthquakes. Along with the threat of the earthquake, the Columbia River Gorge has been the site of a number of historic landslides, including the great Bonneville landslide.With its historic and symbolic status, relationship with both geologic and ecologic systems, multiple uses and uncertain hazard futures, the Bonneville Dam is an apt structure to probe for information regarding longevity and change. We asked: how might the function of the Bonneville Dam be altered in the event of a Cascadia earthquake?
To assess how an earthquake might alter the functions of the Bonneville Dam we conducted the following methods: geologic hazard mapping, chain of events analysis, and informal interviews.
We found that certain aspects of the dam, such as hydropower, fish migration, or recreation, may indeed change in the event of the earthquake. However, we discovered that it is nearly impossible for the Bonneville Dam to prepare for this because of the lack of federal funding that is available, and because there is no way to know exactly what the impending earthquake will be like.
The building and maintenance of structures is an investment in some belief in the future. How will the structures of our civilization be remembered and how do geologic events influence that perspective? Perhaps sometime in the next fifty years, the Cascadia earthquake will contribute to the many answers to these questions.