December 8th,2010
The HOOVER DAM.
By Xernay Aniwar
Basking in the dry, southwest sun on the Arizona-Nevada border, lies what has been called the American pyramid–a sixty-story colossus of concrete, built in a desert just as relentless as those of ancient Egypt. Located about 30 miles southeast of the Las Vegas strip, the Hoover Dam boasts the title of one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. Engineers at the time deemed the building of a dam of such massive size impossible; no machines had yet been invented to do such work, and no man power could erect a concrete thing of such great height. The dam stands forcefully in the path of the once-uncontrollable Colorado River, harnessing its power into an average yearly output of about 4.2 billion killowatt-hours of hydroelectric energy. (usbr.gov) This year, 2010, is the 75th anniversary of the Hoover Dam, whether this is an milestone worth celebrating or shaming is a subject many disagree on.
In 1928, during the last years of Calvin Coolidge’s presidency, the Boulder Canyon Project was authorized. The project then was inherited to president Herbert Hoover, who was to oversee the completion. President Roosevelt dedicated the dam’s name first to Hoover in 1935, then it was briefly called Boulder Dam, but in 1947, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam. Four and a half million cubic yards of concrete, over 5,000 workers, and five years later, the Hoover Dam was officially turned in to the Federal Government on March 1st, 1936, two years ahead of schedule. The entire project cost $385 million. (bcmha.org)
Construction began in 1931, and the first layer of concrete was set on June 6th 1933. (pbs.org) The United States was in the middle of an economic disaster; The Depression was well underway and jobs were scarce, so when word got out that thousands of men were needed for a construction job, thousands from around the country came to sign up. Still, a contractor needed to finalize a design; so the Bureau of Reclamation set out to find someone up to the challenge. (bcmha.org)
The Bureau offered official documents, at $5 a piece, to anyone interested; these documents covered 100 pages of text, and 76 drawings complied during the negotiation of The Hoover Dam. The government would provide all necessary materials for construction, each contractor entering the contest was to render a $2 million bid bond, and the winner additionally added a $5 million performance bond. The winner would have seven years to complete the project, or penalties would ensue. (pbs.org)
The winning company ended up being the combination of one self-entitled, “Six Companies”. It was made up of the Wattis Brothers, heads of the Utah Construction Company, who were interested in bidding on the project, but lacked the money for the performance bond, whom also lacked sufficient resources even in combination with their longtime partners, Morrison-Knudsen. They formed a joint venture to bid for the project with Pacific Bridge Company of Portland, Oregon; Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco, California; MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. of Los Angeles; and the J.F. Shea Company of Portland, Oregon and thus the project began. (pbs.org)
The summer of 1931 was one of the hottest on record, with body temperatures reaching 112 degrees. (bcmha.org) Working conditions were miserable, the project was much more grueling than the men had signed on for. The workers would have to build two power plants at the base, and dig four tunnels through hard canyon rock to divert water around worksite before the building of the actual dam could begin. (7wonders.info) As the technology had not yet been developed to maneuver heavy objects by machine, men tied themselves to ropes while dangling hundreds of feet above the raging Colorado River to pour cement, and the tunnels were hand drilled. In addition to the 7 year completion deadline, Six Companies had agreed to another contract: two and a half years to divert The Colorado River, or face steep fines for every day they were delayed, in a rush to meet these deadlines Six Companies often put speed before safety, and dam workers were exposed to dangers such as carbon monoxide poisoning, dehydration, and electrocution. (pbs.org) These impossible tasks were worsened by the 102 degree heat of Nevada, and altogether, about 112 men were lost either from heat stroke, dehydration or construction accidents –Records show that the men were getting paid about four dollars a day. (pbs.org) Despite all this, workers knew they had little leverage to lobby for better conditions, because with a quarter of the nations work force unemployed, the workers knew they could be easily replaced.
The main reason for the construction of the Hoover Dam was to harness the country’s wildest river, in order to bring power, water, and people to the southwest. The Colorado River was dark and red with mud and silt which collected from carving out the planet’s most impressive canyons. It was wild until 1901, when Western farmers set out to tame it, their plan was to water the desert by digging a canal system that brought the River into lower California, and turned dehydrated soil into an agricultural paradise they would forever call the Imperial Valley. (arizonaleisure.com) It worked, and for four years, farmers thought they were living a miracle; but in 1905, without warning, the river struck back, the Colorado tore open the canal and flooded the valley, creating an inland sea across 150 square miles. Over the next twenty years, floods would wipe out thousands of acres of farmland, and millions of dollars were lost. (pbs.org)
In addition to flooding issues, the southwest at the time was a desolate part of the country where no one wanted to visit or live, but places like Nevada, the government felt had major potential to be a tourist spot. The thought process was, if the economy needed stimulation, and there was part of the country we could change into something new and exciting where people would come and spend their money, it should be done. Thus soon after the building of the dam, and new energy being brought to states like Nevada, Arizona, and California, [in addition to drinking water from the Lake Mead reservoir] places like the Las Vegas strip could be built, and the Hoover Dam itself would become a tourist attraction.
However, the downfall of building any dam is the potential of greatly minimizing water from one side of the dam as it builds up on the other. For Hoover, as the bounty of water flows from the melted snow caps of the Rocky Mountains, it travels along the Colorado River and gets caught up at the dam, eventually tapering off into Lake Mead. (usbr.gov) At its 112 mile extension, Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States, extending 112 miles beyond the dam, formed by the impounded water collected from Hoover Dam. However, since the early 1950’s after the dam was built, to present day, the water level has fallen below drought level three times; In June of 2010, the lake was at 39 percent of its capacity, and on October 17, 2010, it reached 1,083 ft, setting a new record low. (usbr.gov)
The results of this drastic decrease in water supply affect many different elements of Lake Mead, the inability of the lake to house the demand of boating and fishing has led to tourism decreasing, causing downfall in the local economy. Additionally, marine specialists have discovered huge declines in fish who migrate inland to Lake Mead for breeding, which suggests those fish have nowhere else to go, virtually eliminating some species altogether, (usbr.gov) for this some blame overfishing and pollution, while others blame Hoover Dam. For something more apt to direct linkage to Hoover, we can examine the current state of a delta in Mexico; In the days before the construction of Hoover, the Colorado deposited its water naturally into a rich delta called the Sea of Cortez. Cortez thrived with wildlife and many different species of fish, while also offering a water source for those in that region. (mongabay)
Today, the small amount of water which does trickle down has been irrigated up to 18 times, and parts of the original delta remain totally dry except in years of exceptional rain. (usbr.gov) The marine life native to this delta is also in peril. For example, Mongabay Wildlife organization complied data on a study of the Totoaba fish, an endangered fish which normally grows to about 4 feet in length, but since the building of the Hoover Dam, its maturing rate for breeding has rapidly declined due to its disappearing environment, causing a decline in species altogether, as fish are caught by fishermen before they have the chance to reproduce; (mongabay) there are many instances such as this, where many feel the Hoover Dam is to blame.
From 1939 to 1949, Hoover Powerplant was the world’s largest hydroelectric installation; today, it is still one of the country’s largest. At 726 feet high, and 1,244 feet long, elevators descend the equivalent of 44 stories into the dam and still do not reach its base. (pbs.org) The Hoover Powerplant works by suppling 17 main turbines–nine on the Arizona wing, and eight on the Nevada. The plant has a nameplate capacity of about 2, 080 megawatts, which is a horsepower capacity of 2,988,000. Water flows through large pipes inside the dam and turns a large wheel called a turbine, which then turns a shaft, which rotates a series of magnets and copper coils generating energy. The energy of falling water is converted into mechanical energy to drive the generator. This concept was discovered by scientist Michael Faraday in 1831 when he found that electricity could be created by rotating magnets within copper coils. (usbr.gov)
Hoover Dam has forever been a center of controversy, due to the unnatural redirection of water, and the observed environmental impact over the last 75 years, and predicted impact into the future. But one must also appreciate the grandness of this great engineering feat; standing twice as tall as the statue of liberty, (7wonders.info) and with the width of two football fields at the base, something of this size was only dream-able at the time. During the Great Depression, the dam was a necessary creation in order to move forward with the economy by providing jobs to thousands of men, and fresh stimulation opportunities in newly reinvented states. Still today, this self-powered machine additionally provides both Arizona and Nevada an annual combined tax-break of $300,000 each. Although most would agree that the planning of the future effect the Hoover Dam would ensue was not well thought out at the time, the question must also be asked, were the consequences worth the overall reward?