Remember when Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe visited Wenatchee’s Rocky Reach Dam?
The year was 2009. I remember the buzz in the community, when word got out that Mike Rowe visited the Rocky Reach Dam for an upcoming segment of the popular show “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel.
Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe (Facebook)
If you’re never seen or heard of the show, Here’s the general premise: Mike Rowe would stop by and perform difficult, strange & sometimes downright disgusting “dirty jobs” with the workers. During Mike’s visit to the Wenatchee Valley, he not only toured our Rocky Reach Dam – but got to take in a Wenatchee Wild hockey game at the Town Toyota Center.
I was there, I looked back and saw him that night. Wish I took a pic of him.
Early in my time with KW3 (maybe 2008?) my boss took the entire radio programming staff on a team building tour of the Rocky Reach Dam. I had to put on a helmet, safety glasses and a pair of steel toed boots.
Mike Rowe did too.
He really got a great taste of life inside a Chelan County PUD turbine at Wenatchee’s Rocky Reach Dam.
Here’s what IMDB documented about the first airing in 2009.
Mike and a couple co-workers cram themselves into a crawl space to perform the impossibly awkward job of replacing the seals on a turbine at a hydroelectric dam. Next Mike changes the oil on the turbine but first he has build a work platform while perched precariously on a wobbly beam. Then, after a little fish surgery, Mike does what he does best, digs through poop. -IMDb
Now a disclaimer.
I’ve attached a video of the Dirty Jobs Rocky Reach Dam episode that aired on the Discovery Channel. The quality is a bit iffy…but you can see who Mike Rowe interacted with at the dam. Enjoy some nostalgia of Wenatchee from the late 2000s
INFO: The Discovery Channel, Max
Take a Powerful Journey Through the World of Electricity at New Energy Zone in Utica
NY Energy Zone, an admission-free NYPA visitors center in Utica, provides an immersive, interactive, state-of-the-art museum experience focused on the past, present and future of energy in New York State.