Once you get past the strip development near Interstate 84, driving through The Dalles can seem like a movie set for the 1930s. Or the 1880s. Or, if you check out the petroglyphs a few miles out of town, like time immemorial.
Father Time seems to have mostly forgotten about this small town on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, but every once in a while he has overcompensated for his neglect by giving the place a jolt.
Like back in 1984, when members of the Rajneesh religious cult tried to poison the local electorate with salmonella so they could win an election (Wikipedia, 2025). The coup failed, but that must have been a shock to a normally idyllic community.
Or back in 1952, when construction of The Dalles Dam began. The resulting man-made Lake Celilo submerged some of the most productive salmon-fishing sites on the North America continent.
The Oregon Historical Society (2025) noted, “Ancestors of today’s Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez Perce Indians fished the narrow rapids coursing through Celilo Falls, Tenmile Rapids, and Fivemile Rapids ‘since time immemorial,’ making salmon a central part of their cultures.”
Take a moment to picture in your mind what “since time immemorial” looks like in the scale of human lives.
The Dalles became one of the 10 largest hydroelectic dams in the U.S. — and is a major source of local jobs (Wikipedia, 2025). Thus, the Trump administration’s recently announced workforce cuts in federal agencies that operate dams could trickle down to this community.
As a case in point, last month the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced buyouts of 3 percent of its civilian staff (Reuters, 2025). The agency is expected to terminate around 750 workers in the Pacific Northwest (Associated Press, 2025).
This has been a controversial move. “(A)s we lose institutional knowledge from people leaving or early retirement, we limit our ability to ensure public safety,” a federal dam worker told the Associated Press (2025). “Having people available to respond to operational emergencies is critical. Cuts in staff threaten our ability to do this effectively.”
Will workforce cuts make the federal government more efficient, or could they end up gutting organizational capacity to the degree that things go wrong — and perhaps even catastrophically wrong? Father Time has yet to weigh in on that one.
Standing on a hill overlooking The Dalles, the machinations of humans can look rather small. The mighty Columbia River will still find its way to the sea whether or not the sun sets on the American century.
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RE:SOURCES
- Associated Press; 2025. “Critics warn staff cuts at federal agencies overseeing US dams could put public safety at risk.” Posted March 14.
- Oregon Historical Society; 2025. “The Dalles Dam.” Accessed April 6.
- Reuters; 2025. “US Army Corps of Engineers offers buyouts to 3% of civilian staff.” Posted March 12.
- Wikipedia; 2025. “The Dalles, Oregon.” Page last edited March 30.
Two decades ago, we had a government whose modus operandi was to slash jobs and expenses, and sell off assets to private companies. l believe that some of that was beneficial, but sometimes these things are not done properly and there are consequences.
One consequence was in a small town of about 6000 north of us where the water system was not properly maintained. A rollback in the number of government municipal water inspectors was blamed for an ecoli contamination that cost 7 lives in the town. Twenty years later, the town is still “famous” for that bungle and the political party in question did not get re-elected.
They also sold off a major toll road to private investment. The tolls became, and still are, exorbitant – to the point that the major non-toll roads near it are perpetually clogged with traffic (the toll road is a “breeze” in comparison).
Government spending is a problem, but wholesale “slash and burn” without proper thinking is not a smart solution.