What high waters could move it from Caterpillar island?
High water could move it from the Caterpillar Island area or the east bank of the Columbia in that channel. The starting water level at Caterpillar Island would have to be several feet higher that the location where the money came to rest.
Everything in nature is moving from a higher energy level to a lower energy level except when something intervenes to increase the energy level. Interventions could be such things as gasoline engines, chemical processes, etc., etc..
There is a General Energy Equation which is fundamental to science, or at least to engineering, that must be obeyed. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it just changes from one state to another. And no natural process is 100 percent efficient. So a portion of any process becomes unusable for other work, and that contributes to such things as global warming.