Common Usage
Residents of the area surrounding the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers—a region centering on the Tri-Cities, Washington metropolitan area—use the term "Columbia Basin" to refer to their own, much smaller region. This usage is roughly synonymous with the Columbia Plateau or roughly equivalent to the relatively unforested area bounded by the Cascades, Blue, Wallowa, and Rocky mountain ranges and the Okanagan Highland. This sense of the term Columbia Basin has expanded from its early focus on the land irrigated by Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project to include other irrigation districts such as the Yakima and Walla Walla valleys. At its center is the Pasco Basin, an area roughly double the size of, and fully containing, the Hanford Site.
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Famous quotes containing the words common and/or usage:
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
—Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in 1 Timothy, 6:7.
The words also appear in the Book of Common Prayer, Burial of the Dead.
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socratesbut pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (17881824)