Hoover Dam Research Paper

3.5 million miles of water run throughout the United States; and since the country’s conception, over 80,000 dams have impounded 600,000 miles of these waters [1]. Dams were originally constructed to provide water to towns and establishes energy sources for mills and later hydroelectric plants. Because these dams were constructed decades ago, they’re reaching a critical point of obsoleteness where they cause more harm than good. Dam removal is increasingly popular across the country to address the ecological problems including habitat loss and sedimentation, despite potential for downstream harm, removing dams is more environmentally and economically cost effective than upgrading them. The Marmot, Glines Canyon, and Elwha river dam removal projects each highlight different challenges of dam removal, but overall

The Grand Coulee Dam, located in Eastern Washington, was one of controversy, risk, and a point of no return. While the water captured made the desert area blossom in agriculture and it powered some large cities, it created a sense of accomplishment, that humans can control Mother Nature. While many people were very excited for this new construction – which gives power and resources - at the time, some thought it should not be allowed, they are not proud of containing the Columbia River. In this analysis, I am going to focus on the economic and social effects that the Grand Coulee Dam created in its build.

“The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest hydropower station and dam in the world, with a 1.2 mile stretch of concrete and a 370 mile-long reservoir and 525 feet deep.”[4] To put that into understandable dimensions it will be the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, and twice as tall. “The reservoir created by the backflow of the dam will extend 360 miles up river to Chongqing, a distance equal to nearly half the length of California.”[5] So what is the point of this monstrosity? The major prospective benefits will be power generation, flood control, and increased navigability of the Yangtze River. Many people debate whether these attributes will actually be as beneficial as builders expect. The drawbacks of the dam are its flood plain and the effects of the flood plain, environmental damage, resettlement, historical and cultural loss, and the ideas of speculators about whether or not some of the dam’s abilities are true.

The Buffalo Creek flood of West Virginia is believed to be the most devastating coal relate disaster in West Virginia history. The flood occurred in the Buffalo Creek area of Logan County on February 26, 1972 when three dams broke and released 132 million gallons of water and coal waste known by miners as “gob,” and is a thick sludge-like material. The gob contains many toxic chemicals and pollutants such as mercury and arsenic that are left behind from the coal mining process. The wastewater would lie in settling ponds and dams until it could be properly disposed of. The water that was left over from processing coal would be disposed of in two different ways. Some of the water would be pumped from the dam back to the “tipple”, otherwise

Lobeck, Joyce. "Colorado River Aids Flow of Progress in Yuma." Colorado River Aids Flow of Progress in Yuma. January

Not only did the Yma Project affect farming and how irrigation worked, but it also affected the people that lived around it. There was an issue that the Indians along the Colorado River had. They were being pushed out of the area on both the California side and the Arizona side because of the immigrants that came September 3, 1852. They came on a boat called the “Capacity”. Not only did that boat carry the immigrants, it also carried lumber and an engine for a steamboat (steamer) that would be able to sail in twenty- two inches of water. The Indians realized that Fort Yuma was getting stronger and was not going anywhere, anytime soon. It was big on the California side, but the

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.

George Merritt Hoover was born on August 8, 1847 in Caistorville, Lincoln County, Ontario, Canada and was a founder of Dodge City, Kansas, and was esentially involved in nearly every facet of life of the renowned frontier town until his death in 1914.

1. Why was the building of the dam first proposed in 1919 and by whom?

“Drought and flood in the American Southwest disabled the growth of the agricultural industry”.(Construction of the Dam). The impact of the Federal Government had on the Hoover Dam change the Southwest economy for the best. Before the Hoover Dam the employment rate was low, there were severe drought that were hard to overcome, and when the rain did come the flooding was hard to control. The impact of the Hoover Dam in the Southwest was tremendous by being able to control the flooding of the Colorado River and provided a irrigation systems for farm lands. In addition the Hoover Dam also provided a sources of electrical power for the Southwest. Those are some good examples of the influences of the Hoover Dam in the Southwest but of course there

Chapter one starts with the telling of the history of the Colorado River and its usage. It discusses the Colorado River Compact that was signed in 1944 that essentially divided the Colorado River’s water up into seven allotments for the seven states that the river flowed through. Upon further reading, it is discovered that when the engineers estimated the annual flow of the river, 1905 to 1922, had actually been a time of over average rainfall. This in turn doomed the lower states that shared the river to a much less flow rate that the upper states. This not only extremely limited the amount of water that the lower states received, it also reduced the amount of power that could be generated by dams along the river. Another interesting fact

Outside of China, the United States is the most-dammed country on the planet. Counting only dams taller than fifty feet high, the U.S. has some 5,000 dams that range from giant hydroelectric dams such as the Grand Coulee in Washington State to flood control dams in the southeast and dams that provide water for irrigation in California. Overall the United States has as many as 2.5 million dams of one sort or another. The design and construction of many of these dams took place between 1930 and 1975. This 45 years period is known as the golden age of dam building, starting with the construction of the Hoover Dam beginning in 1931. By the 1970s the golden age of dam construction began to come to an end with increased concerns

Although Boulder City seems like the perfect city to live in and life is perfect there, the city also faces struggles. For example, the drought that has affected the western U.S. is a challenge for Boulder City, as it is the city that harbors Lake Mead, and traffic problems. Boulder City is not the only city affected by the drought, but it is still heavily affected. The biggest concern of any city government and its citizens is having resources to support the life in the town. Unfortunately, the drought has caused a big challenge in providing the most vital resource: water. In addition to this, Boulder city has terrible traffic problems coming in and out of town; therefore, construction has begun on Interstate

     As previously mentioned, the Boulder Dam was one of the most famous, and certainly most expensive (with the whole project costing about $385 million) public works program. To provide jobs and much needed money to unemployed Americans, the Bureau of Reclamation, under President Hoover, authorized the Boulder Canyon Project on the Colorado River in 1928. The entire project included a hydroelectric power plant and a reservoir to control floods of the Colorado River and supply power to the Pacific Southwest. The dam reservoir is Lake Mead, which can store approximately 28 million acre-feet of water, making it one of the world’s largest artificially created bodies of water. Besides providing many jobs, the project responsible for the officially named Hoover Dam (as of 1947), added about 3 million acres of national parks and monuments and expanded

With human development, industrial pollution and other factors all contribute to the deteriorated condition of the river, which makes it difficult to determine the dams’ environmental impact in isolation. CITE That said, the current operations of the dam hamper and potentially prevent environmental improvement of the Colorado. In order to preserve some semblance of the Colorado ecosystem, man must restore the natural processes that created the ecosystem. The real question is how to do that, whether via dam decommission or a less extreme policy change.