News letter Dam edition

Ingeokring Newsletter
The foundation and abutments mainly consist of andesite
breccia and welded ash-flow tuff intruded by latites. The first
concrete for the dam was placed on June 6, 1933 and until
May 29, 1935 3.3 million m 3 of concrete was poured. Hoover
Dam is the tallest solid concrete dam in the Western Hemisphere.
There is one taller dam in the USA (Oroville Dam),
but this is not a solid concrete dam. Worldwide, Hoover Dam
ranks number 20 in the list of tallest dams. Lake Mead, which
was formed by the construction of Hoover Dam, is the largest
reservoir in the USA.
2004 Road Trip: Hungry Horse Dam, Grand Coulee Dam,
Chief Joseph Dam and Diablo Dam
In October and November 2004, I made a road trip through
the Northwestern states of the USA (Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Wyoming and Montana) and the Western provinces
of Canada (Alberta, British Columbia). This area can be called
‘dam country’ without exaggerating too much, as can be
The power plant is located in the U-shaped structure at the
base of the dam (see Figure 4). Each power plant wing is 200
m long and there are 17 main turbines. The plant has a total
capacity of 2.99 million horsepower and 2 079 MW.
Hoover Dam generates more than 4 billion kWh per year of
low-cost hydro-electric power, which is enough to serve 1.3
million people in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Contrary
to what many people think, only 4% of Las Vegas’ massive
energy consumption is generated by the Hoover Dam hydropower
plant.
Fig. 6 Columbia River basin with dams (source: www.nwdwc.usace.army.mil/report/colmap.htm).
seen in Figure 6 which (by coincidence) is also more or less
the area that I visited on this road trip. The picture shows the
Columbia River basin, an area with roughly the size of
France. The Columbia's heavy flow and its large elevation
drop over a relatively short distance give it tremendous potential
for hydropower generation. It is the largest hydroelectric
power producing river in North America, with 14
dams in the Columbia River alone, in the United States and
Canada.
3 of the 4 dams that were visited are in the Columbia River
basin: Hungry Horse Dam (Hungry Horse, Montana), Grand
Coulee Dam (Grand Coulee, Washington) and Chief Joseph
Dam (Bridgeport, Washington). The other dam is the Diablo
Dam in the Skagit River, just east of Seattle.
Fig. 5 Spectacularly placed transmission masts in the Black Canyon
near Hoover Dam (source: author’s photo).
Dam edition | Double Issue 2007/2008 | 55