Hoover Dam (USA) - description, history, location. Exact address, phone number, website. Reviews of tourists, photos and videos.

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Not far from the famous American city of Las Vegas is an interesting attraction - one of the largest dams in the world - the Hoover Dam. To be more precise, it is located on the border of the states of Nevada and Arizona in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. This unique object owes its name to Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of America. Largely thanks to this man, the Hoover Dam was built.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Americans decided to curb the rebellious Colorado River, as it often caused great inconvenience to the locals. When snow melted in the mountains, the river flooded the surrounding lands downstream. The construction of the reservoir was supposed to solve this problem. In addition, the dam could continuously supply water to Los Angeles and other areas of California. However, the designers and everyone involved in the creation of the future Hoover Dam faced one problem. It was necessary to settle the issue of the distribution of water between the states in order to avoid litigation with all dissatisfied consumers. The fact is that at that time in American courts there were a huge number of lawsuits related precisely to the use of water resources. So that after the completion of the construction of the dam everyone was satisfied, a special commission was created. Its members signed an agreement that clearly indicated how the life-giving water would be spent.

The construction of the Hoover Dam began in 1931. Herbert Hoover at that time had already become the president of the country and allocated budget money for this grandiose construction. The dam was built at a difficult time for the Americans - the country was in the Great Depression. Thousands of people, desperate to find at least some work, gathered at the construction site of the dam. The working conditions of these hard workers were extremely difficult. Many builders died or became disabled due to carbon monoxide poisoning. A total of 96 people died here. The first to die was the topographer J. Tierney, who drowned in the river. The last person to die at the construction site of the Hoover Dam was his son Patrick. He crashed, falling from one of the spillway towers.

Especially for the workers next to the future dam, it was decided to break the small city of Boulder City. However, they did not manage to build housing on time, and at first people had to live in a camp made in haste. Conditions there were so bad that in the summer of 1931 the workers went on strike. However, their rally was brutally suppressed. The builders moved into more or less normal houses only six months later. In total, the Hoover Dam was built by more than five thousand people. Interestingly, gambling, prostitution and liquor were banned in Boulder City. By the way, there are no gambling establishments here today.

In addition, engineers have developed a unique concrete cooling system. The fact is that the Hoover Dam could not be built as a monolithic structure, because then the concrete would have cooled for as long as 125 years. It was decided to build a dam of trapezoidal columns in order to reduce the cooling time of the concrete. For even greater effect, special metal pipes were made into which cooled water from the river flowed. By the way, in total, 3.33 million cubic meters of concrete and about 729 million USD in terms of modern money were spent on the construction of the dam.

This dam is considered the largest man-made structure built since the time of the Egyptian pyramids.

Already in 1935, ahead of schedule, the Hoover Dam was inaugurated. Of course, many of the works were not yet completed, and they were fully completed only a year later. Already in 1937, the dam became a popular tourist attraction. Today, 9 million tourists come to see this attraction every year. The main task was completed - Colorado stopped flooding the lands downstream. However, many species of animals and plants are on the verge of extinction due to such global human interventions. Lake Mead, formed by the dam, became the largest reservoir in the States.

The image of the Hoover Dam has been used in many works of art. So, for example, the dam is mentioned in the book by Ilf and Petrov "One-story America", in the films "Transformers" and "Universal Soldier" and the cartoon "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America".

The Hoover Dam (sometimes called the Hoover Dam) is one of the tallest dams on the planet, and one of the most powerful hydroelectric dams in America.
It is located in the southwestern part of the country right on the border of the states of Nevada and Arizona, in the bed of the Colorado River, along which this border passes.

Hoover Dam on the map

• geographic coordinates 36.016065, -114.737411
• distance from the US capital Washington about 3350 km in a straight line
• the nearest airport is Boulder City, about 14 km away
• the nearest international airport McCarran, located in the famous Las Vegas, is located 40 km to the west
• Hoover Dam is located at the outlet of Lake Mead, the largest artificial reservoir in the United States.

The construction of the dam was necessary based on several factors.
The Colorado River, with its fickle nature, periodically flooded vast agricultural areas downstream. The construction of the dam was able to pacify the violent temper of the river and stabilize the water level in it. In addition, this could serve as an impetus for the development of irrigated agriculture in the region. The huge reservoir resulting from the construction of the dam will be able to meet the water needs of almost the entire southern part of California. Finally, the hydroelectric dam will serve the benefit of the population living in the surrounding area.

Hoover Dam in numbers

• Height - 221.4 meters
• Length - 379 meters
• Height above sea level - 376 meters
• Width at the base - 200 meters
• Width at the top - 14 meters
• Dam volume - 2,480,000 m 3
• Weight over 6,600,000 tons
• Spillway capacity - 11,000 m 3 / s
• The view is arch-gravitational, in the form of a semicircle directed towards Lake Mead, which makes it possible to more effectively distribute the load of water. The water pressure in the lower part of the dam is about 220 tons per 1 square meter

Such a grandiose construction required a lot of research and approvals. As early as the beginning of the 20th century (in 1902), they were looking for opportunities to build a small dam on the Colorado River. But not much success has been achieved. Then, in 1922, it was decided to create a commission, which included representatives of all the states interested in the fair distribution of the water resources of the river and the construction of the dam. The commission also included Herbert Hoover (then he was not yet president, but represented the federal government). The result of the work of the commission was the signing on November 22, 1922 of the "Convention of the Colorado River", which spelled out the relationship between the entities claiming the resources of this river. But the construction of the dam did not begin immediately. Only at the end of 1928, John Calvin Coolidge (30th US President) signed a bill authorizing the construction. But the first financial injections into the project came only in July 1930, when Herbert Hoover himself was already the 31st president of the United States of America.

Construction of the Hoover Dam

According to the plan, construction was to begin in 1931 and be completed in 1938, but the large-scale project was commissioned already in 1936, 2 years earlier.
In those days, such a structure challenged the most advanced technologies. Environmental conditions, when the air temperature often reached 50 o C, the need to change the course of the Colorado River during construction, and a host of other inconveniences posed serious challenges for engineers and designers. So, for example, it was impossible to simply pour concrete into a large formwork, since at ambient temperature the entire structure would freeze for about 125 years! In addition, the process of “setting” and “hardening” of concrete in such a large volume would inevitably lead to its cracking and destruction. Naturally, neither the concrete hardening time, nor its quality at the output of the developers suited. A unique engineering decision was made - to assemble the entire giant reinforced concrete structure from separate blocks.

By the way, we already know this solution from the buildings in the ancient city in Peru. But, if in Sacsayhuaman the technology of fitting huge blocks is still unknown to science, then in the Hoover Dam it is not a secret.

Roughly speaking, the entire dam is assembled almost like a children's Lego constructor.

All blocks were the same height, about one and a half meters, but the rest of the dimensions changed depending on where the block was located. The maximum block size was 18 m 2 (in the lower part of the dam) and the minimum 7.6 m 2 (in the upper part). Inside these blocks were laid steel pipes with a diameter of 1 inch (about 2.5 cm), through which ice water circulated. This made it possible to create conditions for the proper solidification of concrete. As a result, a very high-quality concrete block was obtained, reinforced with pipes, with which the blocks were also connected to each other. By the way, the total length of such pipes was 937 km! After the block hardened, the pipes were filled with concrete, and the next block was cast. Thus, a single monolithic structure was created. In 1995, studies were carried out that proved that the concrete of the Hoover Dam was still gaining strength. And such an indicator as compressive strength generally goes beyond the standard range for widespread concrete.

As you understand, the construction of such a grandiose project required significant human resources. And at first, almost nothing was provided for their residence. The workers lived in temporary camps and in rather difficult conditions. As a result, on August 8, 1931, the builders staged a strike, which was suppressed by force. Only by the spring of 1932 was housing for workers built in the town of Boulder City, and the unrest stopped.

Throughout construction, gambling and the sale of alcohol were prohibited in the town.
Boulder City is the only city in Nevada where gambling is still banned.

To change the course of the river and divert water from the work site, 4 tunnels were drilled in the mountains (two on each side of the river) with a diameter of just over 17 meters each and a total length of about five kilometers. The walls of the tunnels were filled with concrete 90 cm thick. Therefore, the effective diameter was reduced to 15 meters. At the end of the construction of the dam, these tunnels were not blocked, that is, they are still active, which in turn gives the dam stability and reduces the load.

The energy of water has found its application in hydroelectric power plants.
On October 26, 1936, the power plant gave the first electricity. To date, the total capacity of 17 generators is 2080 MW.

If all the spillways of the dam are opened, then the energy of the falling water will be about 25,000,000 horsepower.

Unfortunately, throughout the geodetic, research and construction work, fatalities were not uncommon. In total, according to official figures, 112 people died during the work. The sad statistics were discovered on December 20, 1922 by the surveyor JG Tierney (in the original JG Tierney). He drowned while looking for a place to build a dam in the Black Canyon, where the Colorado River flowed. Then there were accidents and several suicides. But there is also something else interesting. Officially, the last death recorded during construction is dated December 20, 1935, that is, exactly 13 years after the first tragedy. But that's not all. The last person to die was named Patrick Tierney. He was the son of the same surveyor who had torn off the death bill.

In honor of all the people who died during the construction of the dam, there is a memorial, the inscription on which reads "They died so that the deserts would bloom."

Despite the tragedies and difficulties associated with the construction of the dam, the facility was commissioned ahead of schedule and in compliance with all technical regulations.

It is noteworthy that from 1933 until 1947 the dam was called "Boulder Dam", since it was originally planned to be built in Boulder Canyon. The name was preserved even when the dam began to be built already in the Black Canyon.

During the grand opening ceremony for the construction, it was proposed to name the project "Hoover Dam" in honor of the current president. In the United States, there is indeed a tradition to name a large dam by the name of the president in force at the time of its construction. And in February 1931, Congress officially approved this name.
The adventures with the name did not stop there. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president, and his administration decided to rename the dam back to Boulder Dam. And although no official decision was made, Hoover's name disappeared from all documents, both official and from travel booklets.

In 1947, two years after Roosevelt's death, a bill was submitted to the Senate to restore the Herbert Hoover dam. It was approved by the Senate and signed by the president. And now the whole world this landmark of the United States is known as the "Hoover Dam".

The upper part of the dam is a bridge connecting the banks of the Colorado River. After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, the passage through the dam was limited, and in 2010, a backup bridge was erected at a distance of half a kilometer from the dam, which significantly reduced the load on the dam and increased its safety.
Such a colossal structure invariably attracts tourists, so you can take a tour here and learn a lot of interesting things.

1. For some time, the states in which the Colorado River flowed could not come to a common decision on the construction of a dam. They feared that the resources of the river would be distributed unevenly and "dishonestly", but after negotiations, they nevertheless came to an agreement. An important influence on the decision was made by Gerber Hoover (then he was not yet president, but represented the federal government). He managed to convince all participants of the expediency of building a dam and a fair distribution of natural resources. Later, historians called this fact the “Hoover Compromise”
2. At the same time, thousands of people worked on the construction of the dam, but the maximum was recorded in June 1934. Then 5218 people took part in the construction. In total, about 21,000 people worked on the project.
3. The dam is operated by the US Bureau of Reclamation, which in turn is a division of the US Department of the Interior.
4. The Hoover Dam has been on the National List of Historic Places since 1981.
5. the construction of the dam took 2,480,000 cubic meters of concrete. This would be enough to build a high-quality two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York, which is about 4,700 km. The thickness of the coating would be 20 cm and a width of about 5 meters
6. the first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, and the last on May 29, 1935
7. the average monthly wage of workers was $500,000
8. About one million tourists visit the Hoover Dam every year
9. the project cost the US budget $49 million
10. From 1939 to 1949, the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant was the largest in the world.

Hoover Dam photo

general information

Technically, the Hoover Dam is a reinforced concrete wall curved towards Lake Mead. Thanks to this curved shape, the wall can easily withstand a pressure of 35 billion cubic meters. m of water. The construction of this wall was once a real challenge to modern technology. The extreme heat of the desert, when the temperature rises to 50 ° C in summer, became the main problem from the very beginning. Due to the high temperature, it was impossible to simply pour all the concrete into the formwork. In this case, the high ambient temperature would not allow the liquid mass of concrete to harden for only 125 years! It was decided to use a different technique. Engineers assembled the Hoover Dam from individual concrete blocks, which were fastened together right on the spot.

A pipe system was left in advance in concrete blocks. They were filled with ice water. Water cooled the mass of concrete, and it solidified as expected. After that, concrete was poured into the pipes themselves. It also made the structure more durable. The pipes not only played the role of reinforcement (metal beams that make up the frame of modern reinforced concrete structures), but also reliably fastened individual blocks together. All blocks had the same height - 1.5 m. The remaining dimensions depended on where in the dam each individual block was supposed to be placed. The largest had a section of 7.6 X 18 m, the smallest - 7.6 X 7.6 m. In total, 2.6 million cubic meters were needed for the dam. m of concrete - such an amount of concrete is hard to even imagine! It would be enough to lay a road surface 20 cm thick and 5 m wide through all the States, from San Francisco to New York!

The Colorado River was to change course during construction. For this purpose, huge tunnels were pierced in the walls of the canyon, through which the builders diverted water. In total, 4 tunnels turned out, the largest with a clearance of 17 m in diameter, 5 km long. 3,500 people worked at the construction site, of which 96 died.

The dam was originally expected to cost $49 billion. But in the end, this figure more than tripled: 165 billion! The exorbitant costs paid off through the sale of electricity and tourism only by 1985. From that time on, the Hoover Dam was struck off the lists of debtors and began to bring a net profit.

Data

• Time of construction: The Hoover Dam was built between 1931 and 1935. Its cost was $165 billion.
• Electricity generation: The power plant was launched on September 12, 1936. Now 17 modern turbines generate 2000 MW of electricity per year. This is equal to more than 4 billion kWh of electricity, which is enough to
• meet the needs of 1.3 million Americans living in the Southwestern states.
• Building Materials: The Hoover Dam is built from 2.6 million cubic meters. m of concrete and weighs 6.6 million tons.
• Dimensions of the reservoir: Lake Mead has a length of 177 km, an area of ​​640 square meters. km and a coastline of 885 km. The maximum depth is 180 m, the capacity is up to 35 billion cubic meters. m of water.

Status built Start of construction 1931 opening date 1936 Architectural style art deco Height 221 (725 ft) Length 379 (1243 ft) Width 201 (659 ft) Reservoir mid

• volume

35.2 km³

• surface

640 km² Turbines 13 major

• general power

2078 MW

• Working out

4.0 billion kWh on average per year Design Six Companies Inc. (engineering)
Gordon Kaufman (exterior) Construction Six Companies Inc. Control US Bureau of Reclamation Official site Plan / Scheme of the object:

Hoover Dam, Hoover Dam(English) Hoover Dam, also known as Boulder Dam) - a unique hydraulic structure in the USA, a concrete arch-gravity dam 221 m high and a hydroelectric power plant built in the lower reaches of the Colorado River. Located in the Black Canyon, on the border of the states of Arizona and Nevada, 48 km southeast of Las Vegas, a few kilometers from the town of Boulder City; forms Lake (reservoir) Meade. Named in honor of Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, who played an important role in its construction. Construction of the dam began in 1931 and ended in 1936, two years ahead of schedule.

The dam is administered by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, a division of the United States Department of the Interior. In 1981, the dam was listed on the US National Register of Historic Places. The Hoover Dam is one of the most famous attractions in the Las Vegas area.

History of construction

At the same time, one of the obstacles to the implementation of the project was the doubts of the states lying in the Colorado River basin about the fair distribution of water resources among consumers. There were fears that California, with its influence, financial resources, and lack of water, would lay claim to much of the reservoir's water resources.

As a result, in 1922, a commission was created, which included one representative from each of the interested states and one from the federal government (Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce in the government of President Warren Harding). The result of the activities of this commission was the Colorado River Convention signed on November 24, 1922, which fixed the methods for dividing water resources. The signing of this document, called the "Hoover Compromise", opened the way for the implementation of the construction of the dam.

The construction of such a large-scale hydraulic structure required the attraction of significant funds from the state budget. The funding bill was not immediately approved by the US Senate and the White House. Only on December 21, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill approving the implementation of the project. Initial appropriations for the construction of the dam were allocated only in July 1930, when Herbert Hoover was already president.

The original plan was to build a dam in Boulder Canyon. Boulder Canyon). Therefore, despite the fact that it was finally decided to build a dam in the Black Canyon, the project was named Boulder Canyon Project.

Construction

The contract to build the dam was awarded to Six Companies, Inc., a joint venture between the Morrison-Knudsen Company of Boise, Idaho; Utah Construction Company (Ogden, Utah); Pacific Bridge Company (Portland, Oregon); Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. ​​Bechtel Company (Oakland, California); MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. (Los Angeles) and J. F. Shea Company (Portland, Oregon).

Many thousands of workers participated in the construction (the maximum number - 5251 people - in July 1934). According to the terms of the construction contract, the employment of immigrants from China was not allowed, and the number of black workers during construction did not exceed thirty people employed in the lowest paid jobs. It was planned that a whole town - Boulder City - would be erected for builders next to the dam, however, the construction schedule was adjusted in favor of accelerating and increasing the number of jobs (this was done to reduce the massive unemployment that resulted from the Great Depression). In this regard, at the time of the appearance of the first workers, the city was not yet ready, and the builders of the dam spent the first summer in temporary camps. The delay in the delivery of housing and dangerous working conditions led to a strike that took place on August 8, 1931. The workers' uprising was dispersed with guns and clubs, but the pace of construction in Boulder City was increased, and by the spring of 1932 the workers had moved into permanent housing. Boulder City banned prostitution, gambling, and the sale of liquor for the duration of construction. The ban on the sale of alcohol in the city lasted until 1969, and the ban on gambling remains to this day (this is the only such city in Nevada).

The construction of the dam was carried out in difficult conditions. Part of the work was carried out in tunnels where workers suffered from excess carbon monoxide (some workers became disabled or even died as a result). The employer, however, announced that these diseases are the consequences of ordinary pneumonia, and he is not responsible for this. At the same time, the construction of the Hoover Dam became the first construction site to use hard hats by construction workers.

A total of 96 people died during construction. The first person to die on the construction of the dam was topographer J. Tierney, who drowned in Colorado in December 1922 in the process of choosing the best site for construction. By coincidence, the last victim of the construction was his son Patrick Tierney, who died thirteen years later, falling from one of the spillway towers [ not in source] .

Preliminary work

The dam was planned to be built in a narrow canyon on the border between Nevada and Arizona. To divert water from the Colorado River away from the construction site, four tunnels with a diameter of 17.1 m were drilled in the stone walls of the Black Canyon. The total length of the tunnels was 4.9 km. The construction of the tunnels began in May 1931. The lining of the tunnels was made of concrete 0.9 m thick, as a result, the effective diameter of the conduits was 15.2 m. turbines and discharge of excess water. The fact that the spillway is carried out not through the body of the dam (as on the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, built later on the same principle as the Hoover dam), but through tunnels located in the surrounding rocks, gives stability to the dam.

To isolate the construction site and prevent possible flooding by the waters of the river, two caisson dams were built. The construction of the upper dam was started in September 1932, despite the fact that the outlet tunnels had not been completed at that time.

In order to ensure the safety of work, before the start of the construction of the dam, measures were taken to clean the walls of the canyon from free-lying stones and rocks: they were blown up with dynamite and thrown down.

Construction of a concrete dam

The first concrete was poured into the foundation of the dam on June 6, 1933. For the production of concrete, local deposits of non-metallic materials were discovered, and special concrete plants were built.

Since works of this scale had never been carried out before, a number of technical solutions used in the construction process were of a unique nature. One of the problems that engineers had to face was the cooling of concrete. Instead of a solid monolith, the dam was built as a series of interconnected columns in the shape of a trapezoid - this allowed the excess heat generated during the solidification of the concrete mixture to dissipate. Engineers have calculated that if the dam were built as a monolith, it would take 125 years for the concrete to cool completely to ambient temperature. This could lead to cracking and collapse of the dam. In addition, to speed up the cooling process of the concrete layers, each form that was poured contained a cooling system of 1-inch metal pipes into which river water entered. The hardening process of the concrete from which the dam is built has not been completed to this day.

In total, 600 thousand tons of Portland cement and 3.44 million m³ of aggregate were poured into the body of the dam. The Hoover Dam is the most massive man-made structure built on earth since the Pyramids of Giza.

Power station

Power plant engine room

The development of a pit for the hydroelectric facilities was carried out simultaneously with the digging of a pit for the foundation of the dam. The earthworks for the U-shaped structure at the foot of the dam were completed at the end of 1933, and the first concrete for the power plant building was poured in November of that year.

architectural solution

View of the dam

The initial project provided for a fairly simple architectural solution for the dam and the building of the hydroelectric power station. It was assumed that the outer side of the dam would be an ordinary wall, framed on top with a neo-Gothic balustrade. The building of the power plant should not have differed much from the usual factory workshop.

The proposed project was criticized by many contemporaries for its simplicity, which, in their opinion, did not correspond to the epochal nature of the structure. As a result, Los Angeles architect Gordon Kaufman (the author of the design of the building of the Los Angeles Times newspaper) was invited to remake the project. Kaufman managed to rework the project by completing the exterior of the buildings in the tradition of Art Deco style. The upper part of the dam is decorated with turrets that "grow" from the dam itself. There are clocks on the spillway towers, one of them shows Mountain Time (Arizona), and the other - North American Pacific Time (Nevada).

Dam name

The dam was originally to be built in Boulder Canyon, so despite the fact that construction actually began in Black Canyon, it was originally called "Boulder Dam" in official documents. But already at the official opening ceremony of the construction, Secretary of the US Department of the Interior Ray Wilbur announced that the dam would be named Hoover in honor of the current US president. With this statement, Wilbur continued the established tradition of naming the largest dams in the United States after the presidents in power at the time of their construction (for example, the Wilson dam or the Coolidge dam). On February 14, 1931, the US Congress approved the official name of the Hoover Dam.

In 1932, Hoover lost the election to Democratic nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Immediately after the new president took office, the US administration initiated the renaming of the dam to the "Boulder Dam". No official decision was made on this matter, however, Hoover's name disappeared from all official documents and tourist guides of that time.

In 1947, two years after Roosevelt's death, California Congressman Jack Anderson submitted a draft decision to return the Hoover Dam. On April 30, the corresponding bill, approved by the Senate, was signed by the president; since then, the dam has had its modern name.

transport value

View of the dam; water outlet towers and inclined power line pylons are visible

Until 2010, Highway 93 (Route 93) passed along the dam, lying in the meridional direction and connecting the state of Arizona with the Mexican border. The part of the highway adjacent to the dam did not correspond to the highway and the volume of traffic passed through. The road has only one lane in each direction; its serpentine, descending to the dam, includes several sharp and narrow turns, as well as places with poor visibility; the road is prone to landslides.

Mike O'Callaghan Memorial Bridge - Pat Tillman

Power supply

According to the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the electricity generated by the station is distributed in the following ratio:

Statistics

• The cost of construction is $49 million ($729 million based on prices at the beginning of 2012).
• The height of the dam is 221.4 m (the second highest in the USA).
• The length of the dam is 379.2 m.
• The width of the dam is 200 m at the base, 15 m at the top.
• 3.33 million m³ of concrete was used for the construction of the dam.
• The maximum electric power of the power plant is 2074 MW.
• Between 13,000 and 16,000 people are transported daily across the dam by road (according to the Federal Highway Administration).

View from the dam down to the power plant facilities

Environmental impact

The construction of the Hoover Dam and the formation of the Mead Reservoir had a significant impact on the water regime of the Colorado River, and especially on the ecosystem of its delta. During the six years of the construction of the dam and the filling of the reservoir, the water practically did not reach the delta. The estuary of the delta, which before the construction of the dam was a mixing zone of salt and fresh water, reaching a length of 64 km, actually turned into a salty estuary.

The construction of the Hoover Dam stopped the floods that were not uncommon in the lower reaches of the Colorado, it endangered a number of animal and plant species that have adapted to regular flooding. The construction of the dam markedly reduced the fish population downstream. Currently, four species of typical Colorado fish ( Gila elegans, Ptychocheilus lucius, Gila cypha and humpbacked Chukuchan) have endangered status.

To this day, the area around Mead Reservoir shows a trace of the high water level reached in 1983. The reason for such a significant increase in the level was the unusually high amount of precipitation that fell in the western part of the United States as a result of the El Niño effect.

Hoover Dam at night

Hoover Dam in the media

In TV and movies

• One of the episodes of the television series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, released by the BBC in 2003, was devoted to the construction of the dam.
• The fictional Hoover Dam disaster was the subject of an episode of the 2006 miniseries 10.5: Apocalypse by NBC and USA Network. According to the scenario, groundwater allegedly led to the overflow of the reservoir, which led to the overflow of water through the dam and its destruction.
• The Hoover Dam is featured in the fantasy film The Transformers (2007) by Michael Bay.
• The Hoover Dam in the popular science film "Life After People" is one of the last remnants of human civilization that will survive after the disappearance of man.
• In the movie Universal Soldier, Hoover Dam is taken over by terrorists.
• In the Superman movie, a dam break is shown caused by an earthquake.
• In the animated film Beavis and Butt-head Do America, the main characters, while on a tour of the Hoover Dam, provoke a catastrophe that de-energizes large cities powered by a power plant.

In computer games

• The Hoover Dam is presented as one of the wonders of the world in the strategic computer game Civilization and was preserved in its subsequent versions until Civilization IV, in which it was replaced by the Three Gorges Hydroelectric Power Plant (Sanxia).
• In the computer game Duke Nukem Forever, a significant part of the game locations is devoted to the confrontation of the protagonist against alien aggressors in the buildings and engine room of the Hoover Dam; this is the key episode of the game.
• The Hoover Dam is also featured in the computer game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Its name in the game is Sherman Dam. Sherman Dam), it is located in Bone County near the city of Las Venturas. One of the tasks in the game is dedicated to penetrating the dam's engine room and cutting off the city from electricity by mining generators.
• The Hoover Dam is also in one of the maps in the computer game Hunting Unlimited 3.
• The Hoover Dam is present in the computer game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, where in one of the missions the anti-terrorist unit frees the dam from terrorists.
• In the computer game Fallout: New Vegas, the plot revolves around a conflict between three factions over the possession of the Hoover Dam. It, as in reality, is the main energy hub, a little to the northeast is the camp of Caesar's Legion, one of the three sides of the conflict. At the time of the game, it is controlled by the Army of the New California Republic. It is one of the largest objects in the game.
• In the video game Vigilante 8, the dam is one of the scenery in the battle arena.
• In the video game Mafia II, there is a dam similar to the Hoover Dam that stands on the Culver River, its name in the game is the Culver Dam.

Images

Notes

1. Hoover Dam - Lake Mead - Hoover Dam Bridge - Boulder Dam - DesertUSA . // desertusa.com. Archived
2. Hiltzik Michael A. Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century. - New York: Free Press, 2010. - P. 81-87. - ISBN 978-1-4165-3216-3
3. Stevens Joseph E. Hoover Dam: An American Adventure. - Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. - P. 26-27. - ISBN 0-8061-2283-8
4. Construction of Hoover Dam: a historic account prepared in cooperation with the Department of the Interior. KC Publications, 1976. ISBN 0-916122-51-4.
5. Hiltzik Michael A. Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century. - New York: Free Press, 2010. - P. 315-317. - ISBN 978-1-4165-3216-3
6. Anastasia Novikova.. // forbes.ru. Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
7. Fatalities at Hoover Dam
8. Bureau of Reclamation: Lower Colorado Region - Hoover Dam: Tunnels // usbr.gov (Retrieved March 6, 2011)
9. Pavel Kornilayev. Our response to the Hoover Dam. // rus.ruvr.ru. Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved August 23, 2011.

The Hoover Dam, also Hoover Dam or Boulder Dam, is a unique and most famous hydraulic structure in the United States. It was built at the junction of the states of Arizona and Nevada, in the narrow Black Canyon formed by the large Colorado River, not far from Las Vegas and Boulder City. The concrete arch-gravity dam serves not only as a powerful hydroelectric power plant, but also as the main component of the reclamation and flood control system in the southwestern United States.

Hoover Dam, located forty-eight kilometers from the "Entertainment Capital of the World", is included in the list of tourist visits and is one of the interesting and popular attractions in the United States. The dam was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

The dam, having a height of 221 meters, forms a reservoir (lake) mid. The thirty-first president of the country played an important role in the creation of the dam - Herbert Hoover after which it was named. Construction began in 1931, and ended two years earlier than the planned date, in 1936. Operates the dam Bureau of Reclamation United States (a division of the US Department of the Interior).

The artificially formed lake was named in memory of Elwood Mead, who was the head of the US Bureau of Reclamation during the design and construction of the Hoover Dam. The Mead Reservoir, the largest in the country, with an area of ​​640 sq. km, extending upstream for two hundred kilometers. Lake Mead was designated a US National Recreation Area in 1964.

Construction history

AT rocky mountains during the melting of the snows, the Colorado River, showing its stormy unbridled temper, often flooded the farmlands lying downstream. It was planned that the construction of the dam would solve the problem with fluctuations in the level of the river. The designers expected that the reservoir would contribute to the development of irrigated agriculture, serve as a source of water supply for Southern California, in particular Los Angeles.

The doubts of the states located in the basin Colorado, in the correct and fair distribution of water resources among consumers were one of the obstacles to the implementation of the project. It was feared that California, with its financial resources, influence, water scarcity, would lay claim to more reservoir resources.

Created in 1922, the commission included representatives from interested states, from the federal government (the then secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, was chosen). At the end of autumn 1922 was signed Colorado River Convention: it approved methods for dividing water resources. The document that opened up the possibilities for the construction of the dam was called "The Hoover Compromise".

The large-scale construction of such a hydraulic structure required significant funds from the state budget. The White House and the Senate did not immediately approve funding for the project. President Calvin Coolidge only in 1928 signed a document supporting the construction. Appropriations were made in 1930 when Herbert Hoover became president of the state. The original plan was to dam the Boulder Canyon, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the "Boulder Dam".

Several thousand workers were involved in the construction of the dam, in the summer of 1934 there were (maximum) 5251 people. The construction contract stipulated in advance that Chinese immigrants would not be hired; there were no more than thirty black workers accepted for low-paid jobs.

Next to the dam, it was planned to build a town for the builders - boulder city. But in order to reduce mass unemployment during the Great Depression and speed up the construction of structures, they increased the number of jobs in construction. Boulder City was not ready for the arrival of the workers, so the builders lived in temporary camps for the first summer.

Difficult working conditions

Dangerous working conditions and poor housing caused outrage, and in August 1931 a strike took place. Soon the workers were dispersed using weapons and clubs, but the construction of the town accelerated, in the spring of 1932 the workers had the opportunity to move to permanent dwellings. During construction work in Boulder City, gambling, prostitution, and drinking alcohol were prohibited. It was forbidden to sell alcoholic beverages in the city until 1969, and gambling is still not allowed (in the state of Nevada in the only city).

The dam was built under very unfavorable conditions. The work was carried out in tunnels with an excess of carbon monoxide. As a result of poisoning, many victims became disabled or died. The employer was able to prove that the disease is a complication of pneumonia, thus disclaiming responsibility for it. Safety helmets were used for the first time in the hazardous construction work of the Hoover Dam.

During the entire period of construction, 96 people died. Topographer J. Tierney was the first to die, drowned in Colorado in the winter of 1922, choosing the best place for construction.

Tunneling and concrete dam works

For construction, they chose a place in a narrow canyon at the junction of Nevada and Arizona. Four tunnels with a diameter of 17 m were drilled in the stone walls of the Black Canyon to divert water from the river from the construction. The walls of the tunnels were sealed with concrete 0.9 m thick, the useful diameter was 15.2 m. When the construction was completed, some of the tunnels were blocked with concrete “plugs”, water was supplied to the turbines through the rest and excess water was discharged. The fact that the spillway is carried out through tunnels in the rocks gives stability to the dam.

Two caisson dams were built to fence off the construction site and prevent possible flooding. To secure the work, the walls of the canyon were previously cleared of randomly lying rocks and stones, they were blown up with dynamite, then thrown down.

Concrete was poured into the base of the dam. For its production, deposits of non-metallic minerals were developed, new concrete plants were built. Previously, works of this magnitude have never been carried out, so many of the technical solutions used in construction were of a unique nature.

To concrete cooling happened faster, the dam was built not as a solid monolith, but as a series of interconnected columns in the form of trapezoids, so the excess heat released during the solidification of the mixture was dissipated. According to the calculations of the engineers, it turned out that if the dam was built as a monolith, then the concrete would cool down to the ambient temperature for 125 years. During such a time, cracks would appear, the dam would collapse. So far, the concrete curing process has not been completed.

At the time of its completion, the Hoover Dam was the most massive man-made hydraulic structure on the planet. The concrete used could be enough to build a road 20 cm thick and 5 m wide from San Francisco to New York, i.e. cross the United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Energy supply of the region

Hydroelectric generators produced the first electricity in October 1936. The station was modernized in 1961: additional generators were launched. There are currently 17 generators with a maximum capacity of 2074 MW. Such a powerful power plant is an important facility in the western United States in maintaining the balance of energy consumption.

Complex architecture

According to the plan, the dam and the building of the hydroelectric power station were supposed to be a simple architectural structure. From the outside, the dam will look like an ordinary wall, framed on top by a neo-Gothic balustrade. After being criticized by contemporaries for its simplicity, the project was redone by an architect from Los Angeles, Gordon Kaufman. He completed the exterior of the buildings in the tradition of the art decor style. Turrets, "growing" from the dam, adorn the upper part of the dam. The spillway towers are equipped with clocks showing North American Pacific Time (Nevada) on one side and Mountain Time on the other (Arizona).

transport value

Until 2010, the dam was crossed by a meridional road that linked Arizona to the Mexican border. The highway adjacent to the dam does not correspond to the highway and has insufficient traffic volume. The serpentine going down to the Hoover Dam includes narrow and sharp turns, places with poor visibility.

The movement of vehicles after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 was limited. To exclude the transportation of explosives, some cars are subject to mandatory inspection, others - periodically. These measures have accelerated the construction of a bridge over the Black Canyon, bypassing the Hoover Dam.

In October 2010, near the Hoover Dam, opened Mike O'Callaghan - Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge significantly increased the capacity of the highway. On the bridge with a length of 580 m, a height of 270 m above the Colorado River, vehicles have the ability to move in each direction along two lanes. It represents two parallel arches made of reinforced concrete, curved upwards, resting against the banks.

The impact of structures on the environment

The construction of the Hoover Dam and the creation of the Mead Reservoir had a significant impact on the water regime Colorado rivers, especially on the delta ecosystem. During the entire period of construction and filling of the reservoir, water could not reach the river delta. The mouth, before the existence of the dam, was a zone where salt and fresh water mixed, after construction it turned into a salty estuary.

With the advent of the dam, the floods, which often occurred in the lower reaches, stopped. Several species of animals and plants that have adapted to constant flooding are endangered. The number of fish has significantly decreased.

Tourism

Such an unusual and interesting object as the Hoover Dam could not be left without the attention of tourists from all over the world. In 1937, after the construction of the dam complex was completed, it was available for visiting tourist groups. The number of visitors has grown with the increasing popularity of the nearby Las Vegas. In 1996, the number of tourists visiting the dam in a year was over a million.