The Hoover Dam is one of the crown jewels of American infrastructure. It was one of the most ambitious projects of the early 20th century, requiring millions of cubic feet of concrete and tens of millions of pounds of steel to build a dam that could provide electricity to 1.3 million people. Millions of people visit the dam every year. It's even been immortalized in song.

Now there's a new plan to update the Dam and bring it in line with America's new energy needs in the 21st century, one that would turn the Hoover Dam into a more efficient energy-producing and energy-storing machine.

Just as it did when it opened for business in 1935, the Hoover Dam could once again play a major part in the future of the American West.



Taming the Colorado

Grand Canyon location before construction begins. General Photographic Agency Getty Images

The Colorado River flows 1,450 miles through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. The life-giving waterway supported native tribes for centuries before the U.S. was even country, but in the 1800s the U.S. forced many Navajo and other Native Americans from the area around the river.



All sorts of Americans, from Mormons fleeing persecution to those eyeing a potential Gold Rush, settled into the area. But they all encountered the same problem the Navajo had always known: The Colorado River likes to flood. A lot. Newcomer farmers tried to control the flooding, but the river simply burst through their canals. The Salton Sea, the largest lake in California, was created when Colorado River flooding breached an irrigation system.

Building a model of the Boulder Dam for the California Pacific International Exposition. Bettmann Getty Images

In 1922, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation suggested a new tack. Arthur Powell Davis, head of the Bureau, had been looking for years for a way to turn the Colorado into a hydroelectric energy, including dynamiting the surrounding canyons. Eventually, a suitable location known as Black Canyon was found.

As Bureau engineer Walker Young told an oral history project, "the Lord left the damsite there. It was only up to man to discover it and to use it."

Easier said than done. With a location in hand, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover had to negotiate a compact among the six states equally concerned that they were getting a fair deal, and the states needed to convince a skeptical Congress to fund the project.

Finally, on December 21, 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill authorizing the dam, earmarking $128 million for the massive project.

Building a Stone Colossus

University of Southern California Getty Images

The political and legal legwork turned out to be the easy part. It took years just to prepare the site of Hoover Dam and both living and working and conditions had to be created on the site of a river. During construction, the river would be temporarily diverted, which required tunneling underneath the river itself. The need for a huge work force created a population spike in nearby Las Vegas.

Working conditions at the Hoover Dam were abysmal. The conditions regularly exceeded 100 degrees and around 100 people would die because of work-related accidents, like falling objects or the unforgiving desert heat. Management, a consortium of construction companies from around the country known as Six Companies, rejected employee demand for better working conditions and kept construction at a furious pace. Eventually, they ordered employees hard hats.

One of the most crucial jobs in construction was that of the high scaler. High scalers would use ropes to climb down the canyon walls to strip away rock. During the midst of construction, these walls were festooned with live wires, creating a maze high scalers had to navigate. Once properly situated, they would use jackhammers weighing 44 pounds to create holes in the walls for dynamite to blast away large chunks of rock. Any remaining rock would have to be manually removed with a crowbar.

Steel bars used during construction. There’s as much steel in the Hoover Dam as there is in the Empire State Building. General Photographic Agency Getty Images

The 21,000 workers who passed through the Dam site persevered through these terrible conditions and began pouring concrete on June 6, 1933, a year ahead of schedule. Because concrete expands and contracts in the heat, one continuous pour was impossible, so instead builders placed the concrete in interlocking blocks and cooled the blocks with pipes.

Completed in 1935 with much fanfare, the Boulder Dam (it wouldn't become "Hoover" until 1947) delivered as promised. The artificial Lake Mead it created had filled enough to prompt electric generation in 1936, and only expanded with time. By 1939, the Hoover Dam become the most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world. More than 80 years later, and it's still generating 4 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power.

Old Dam, New Purpose

Gail Shotlander Getty Images

But the Hoover Dam's story is far from over.

A new plan from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), as reported by The New York Times, seeks to improve its potential energy.

The Hoover Dam's first goal was always to help irrigate farmland, with hydroelectricity as a secondary concern to help pay for the project, which was eventually paid off in 1987. Water levels in Lake Mead have dangerously low levels—officials say it could face a shortage by 2026.

Water levels before and after the drought in 2014, which lowered Lake Mead to the lowest levels since the Hoover Dam opened in the 1930s. Ethan Miller Getty Images

Even operating at its most efficient, the Hoover Dam can only work with the water its allowed to use. And to prevent flooding, the Dam only uses 20 percent of the water from the Colorado it could potentially use, with the rest flowing downstream.

In the short term, the DWP's plan could turn the Hoover Dam into a battery reserve of hydroelectric energy. In the long term, the plan or something like it may be necessary to continue using the Hoover Dam as a power source.

The plan would build a solar-powered pump station downstream from the dam that would capture river water from the Colorado and send it back to Lake Mead. Refilling Lake Mead from the Colorado would give the Hoover Dam a reserve of water. Hypothetically, this loop would manage the Hoover Dam's electric output during peak demand and allow the Dam to conserve potential energy, turning it into a giant water-powered battery.

Like the original construction itself, any change to the Dam would likely be a lengthy process. The same way the initial process took years to get off the ground, this project would have to run through the gauntlet of approval by several states with differing agendas.

The biggest concern is what would happen to the areas currently using that downstream water. Businesses at places like Lake Mohave, an artificial reservoir straddling the Arizona-Nevada border, have concerns that the pumping station would cause its reservoir to shrink. The pump, according to anonymous environmentalists cited in The Times, could also affect the Colorado River Delta, a mostly barren patch of land that has seen some revitalization in recent years.

In the best case scenario, the DWP hopes to be done with alterations by 2028, and the technology, at least on paper, seems possible. After all, the Hoover Dam remains a living testament to the idea that if it's possible, it can be built.

Joe Klamar Getty Images

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