The object of focus for my ENVS research project was Grand Coulee Dam, situated in the historical context of the Great Depression and World War II. The dimensions that most surprised and fascinated me were the rhetorical strategies used by proponents of the dam project to create a larger-than-life media sensation to spur public and political support. Woody Guthrie even wrote songs about Grand Coulee! However, power relationships among the proponents and those affected by Grand Coulee have resulted in environmentally unjust effects on Native American tribes and the endangerment of the salmon who migrate on the Columbia River. Our contemporary mindsets which decry dams for the cultural, biological and industrial damage caused are far removed from the excitement and hope once attached to dams, electricity, and nuclear power. Apart from being a monument compared to the Great Pyramid in Egypt, the electricity and nuclear power generated from Grand Coulee contributed to the war effort during World War II, particularly manufacturing aluminum aircraft and powering a nuclear facility at Hanford which led towards the atom bomb, which popularly “won the war.” While nuclear power and uranium enriching had grown in focus and controversy, Grand Coulee and other dams of the Columbia Basin Project characterized an era of growth and the promise of prosperity of the Pacific Northwest, the “Planned Promised Land” of FDR’s New Deal.