The Columbia River article has been the subject of a broad and sustained collaboration by over a dozen editors since at least 2007. The river is of central importance to America's Pacific Northwest region: cultural, economic, transportation, environmental, and international political interests have intersected along the river for centuries, and it played an important role in the area's geologic evolution and native culture as well. Editors from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests have worked diligently to assure that the article's structure and content fully and adequately reflect that diversity of topics, and the central the river has played in the region.
The article has been through two in-depth Good article reviews (passing the second). About a year ago we made a push toward FA, and received an in-depth peer review; though we acted on most of its points, we did not pursue FA at the time. In the year since, we have made progress on the article, but there have been no drastic changes, which should speak to the article's stability.
We have consulted numerous sources, and talked with experts on specific topics in the region. We've done extensive work on related articles, and developed a related navigation box to more fully expose related topics to the encyclopedia's readers. We've tracked down a variety of free media from various periods of history. A professional cartographer made two maps to our specifications. We feel that the article now represents some of the best work on Wikipedia, and is ready for consideration for Featured status. We also recognize that an article on such an extensive topic can never be considered truly complete, and welcome feedback and ideas. We hope the article will soon join the ranks of many related Featured articles: Hanford Site, Johnson Creek (Willamette River) and other Portland-area watersheds, Mount St. Helens, and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.