Secretary Ickes stated this token honor recognized how President Roosevelt championed the dam and advocated the legislation to create it.

Per the agreement, the management and regulations of Lake Roosevelt Management Area set out in the agreement are not intended to nor shall they interfere with or be inconsistent with the purposes for which the Columbia Basin Project was established, is operated and maintained; those purposes being primarily flood control, improved navigation, streamflow regulation, providing for storage and for the delivery of stored waters thereof for the reclamation of public and private lands and Indian reservations, for the generation of electrical power and for other beneficial uses, nor it is in intended to modify or alter any obligations or authority of the parties.

Then at the Grant and Okanogan county line (in the middle of the lake) the boundary goes uplake for a short distance until it cuts across to the east shoreline.

The lake is downstream from the Canadian province of British Columbia's Trail Smelter, and has been the subject of litigation over environmental concerns.

This discovery led the nearby indigenous group, the Colville Confederated Tribes, to take action against Cominco and hold them responsible for degrading the water quality of the lake.

[12] The lawsuit, launched in 2004, was unique in that it demanded Cominco comply with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) order to provide funding for pollution studies of the Trail operation.

[12] In 1994, Cominco stopped depositing smelting byproducts into the Columbia River and in 2004 reportedly spent about $1 billion modernizing the Trail plant and reducing its emissions.