Descriptive Essay On Hoover Dam

     The Hoover Dam is one of America¡¦s greatest civil engineering marvels (Hernan 22) and ¡§has become a magnet to those fascinated by human ingenuity at its best¡¨ (Haussler 30). With its enormous size and construction during the Great Depression, it was an interesting topic to me. I would like to major in civil engineering and, at first, I was researching this topic. I was looking for salary and job descriptions. Then, I discovered the name John L. Savage, the engineer who supervised the design of the Hoover Dam and many other dams in the United States. Savage worked on the Minidoka irrigation project in Idaho after joining the United States Reclamation Service in 1903. His future of building dams first began "When I

About three hundred miles up the Mississippi River form its mouth. Many parish above New Orleans and well north of Baton Rouge. A new navigation lock in the Mississippi’s right bank allows ships to drop out of the river. When they drop they tend to descend as much as thirty-three feet. Then go off to the west or south whichever way they decide to go. The adjacent is known as Cajun country.

The article “Down go the dams” by Jane C.Marks aim to provide an informative view on the current pending issue on Dams. The article starts out my mentioning the important nature of dams in our society. For example, Jane C.Marks states that today about 800,000 dams operate worldwide as well as the fact that most were built in the past century, primarily after World War II. Furthermore, the author lays down informative facts about dams such as the fact that dams control flooding and their reservoirs provide a reliable supply of water for irrigation, drinking and recreation which are all very important to society. In an economic standpoint, although it is very high maintenance dams provide jobs for people. The

The 1930s were not for a moment easy since the Great Depression, which was the utmost absolutely horrible stock-market crash the U.S. has ever dealt with. But when the government planned to start building glorious architectures, people had jobs that paid exceptionally well and could afford to own a home in “depressed” America. When President Hoover was nominated president, he tried to change the ways of the depression, by increasing tariffs so imported goods would stay away, which never helped at all (Owen). Sadly, President Hoover should have just focused on helping the people, like increasing taxes that would cause the wealthy to more, and he would give the people some money back.

The Three Gorges Dam is an unfinished project which will be the largest dam ever constructed on the planet Earth. It is situated in China on the third largest river in the world – the Yangtze. The dam has been debated over since the 1919 and is still a hot topic of debate because of its many pros and cons. In 1994 construction began on the dam, and it is expected to be finished by the year 2009. The massive dimensions of the dam are mind boggling and its functions – if the dam actually works – are truly remarkable; however, with such a large structure also comes difficulties, sacrifices, and cynics. The goal of this essay is to lend an understanding of the dam itself, the prospective benefits of

Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 : it established federal standards in the construction of refuse piles and dams by coal companies but these standards only protected the coal miners (and not the public who lived around the coal mines) while he was working.

The digitized version of this primary source gives a relaxed feel compared to the picture at the Harry Ransom Center. The observer is able to interact with the primary source and can zoom in and out when needed. The brine pipes are hazy in the physical photo, but the digital photo is significantly enhanced. The advantages of the museum version are that because it is the original document, the observer can visualize the picture the same way as a person from the 1930s. The reader eighty-five years ago interpreted it as “environmental imagination” (Sayers). By seeing the actual document you can observe the physical aspects of the primary source.

The Way to Rainy Mountain is a by N. Scott Momaday influential novel in today 's time, as it depicts the history of the Kiowa culture of how they came to be, their traditions and beliefs along with the truth of how their culture came to an abrupt end. As Momaday undergoes a journey to visit Rainy Mountain, he creates an identity for himself in the Kiowa culture that is portrayed through his use of memory, setting, and structure.

The Grand Coulee Dam(G.C.D) changed Kettle Falls forever. Kettle Falls was a peaceful river where Native Americans fished every year. It is said that around 3,000 fish were fished every year. Then in 1933, everything changed when the Grand Coulee Dam started construction and finished on June 1, 1942, that is almost a decade. I feel like it is good that we built the Grand Coulee Dam. The Dam has great effects that have benefitted Washington. Two of them are the jobs people got in the Great Depression and Irrigation we got.

“In the entire flooded region, 50 percent of all animals--half of all the mules, horses, cattle, hogs and chickens--had drowned. Thousands of tenant farmer shacks had simply disappeared.” Said exactly from John Barry, the writer of the book “Rising Tides,” or the book all about the Mississippi River Flood of 1927. This quote explains the whole concept of this flood. Everybody near the Mississippi River were affected, and became devastated in some way. That could be by losing a loved one, or by losing a home. This flood was the worst one in U.S. history. Death, destruction, and depression were served to everybody.

Based on the events that lead to the devastating floods in Queensland and the eventual case that was brought against the engineers of the dam, there have been views from both sides of the divide as to whether or not the actions taken by the engineers were actually ethical or otherwise. We have explored this avenue and have found that both sides of the divide have good reasons to justify their actions. Firstly, we shall explore the avenue that the engineers decisions were appropriate and ethical. It can be said that the engineers did employ act utilitarianism in their decisions and actions, hence causing these decisions to be ethically correct. Act utilitarianism is essentially doing the right thing, which would benefit the majority of

The Meramec Watershed has been threatened by multiple dam projects for the past two hundred years (East-West Gateway Council of Governments, 2007). However, through continued efforts by local land owners and interested parties, this river has never been dammed. In the Meramec’s more recent history, the Meramec Lake project was brought forth in the 1970s and successfully stopped in the early 1980s by grassroots efforts from local activists (East-West Gateway Council of Governments, 2007). In fact, the U.S Army Corps of Engineers were so confident the dam would get official approval, construction for the project began before the debate was over. Today, remnants of the initial construction can be seen in parks such as Meramec State Park and Meramec Spring Park, yielding to the natural ecosystems and geology that dominate the

“I’ll stay here until the water comes up and float down with it when it does,” Mattie Randolph, a housewife from Eastern Tennessee told a TVA worker on his first visit to her family’s house. The TVA worker was there to buy her property which was scheduled to be submerged after the construction of the Norris Dam in 1936. The Randolph’s were one of three thousand families that were being forced to relocate in order to complete the project. Even though all of Mattie’s neighboring families had accepted government offers to buy their land, Mattie and her family were the only to refuse government purchase offers. This is a similar story to those that played out across Eastern Tennessee in the 30’s, 40’s as the newly formed TVA sought to transform

The thirst for water has lead individuals and organizations to build dams across rivers at an alarming rate. During the early 1900s dams were being built so fast it was no longer big news when a dam was completed. These structures provided controlled irrigation water and hydroelectric power to the communities not only close to the reservoirs and dams, but also provided irrigation water and hydroelectric power to communities many miles away from the river. Negatively blocking the flow of the river has impacted fish ecosystems, increased evaporation of water, and flooded intricately important landscapes. These negative impacts, it can be argued, affect the humans living downstream or within the flood plain of the dam site. Dams

Prior to settlement of the western United States, the Colorado River roamed free. Starting from cool mountain streams, the river eventually became a thunderous, silty force of nature as it entered the canyons along its path. The river nourished wetlands and other riparian habitats from the headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to the delta at the Sea of Cortez in Northwest Mexico. Settlers along the river harnessed these waters mainly for agriculture via irrigation canals, but flooding from spring runoff wreaked havoc on agricultural land, prevented development in the floodplain and full utilization of the water, a waste in the eyes of western farmers. In order to meet current and future water demands in the west, the Federal Government