LARGEST LAKE BY MAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1935, Page 11

LARGEST LAKE BY MAN

RESERVOIR 115 MILES LONG

NEW YORK, February 2.

Lowered inch by inch during tire night, a. huge steel gate, weighing 1,350 tons, which is to hold back the turbulent waters of the Colorado River and form the largest lake ever made by man, finally stopped the How of water to-day. The lake will bo in the boundary region of Nevada and Colorado. This is the first phase of a project costing £80,000,000 to harness the stream’ by tho construction of a great dam known as tho Boulder Dam and to use the stored-up water for the geneiafhm of electricity and for the irrigation of 1,u00,000 acres of arid land. It has been - completed in four and a half years —two and a half years ahead of "the agreed time. It will take three years to till the great reservoir, which will finally exLnd for 115 miles up tho canyons of the Colorado River, ranging in width from a few hundred feet to eight miles. An aqueduct 250 miles long will curry some of this stored-up water to Southern California. Part of the electrical power generated, which i; expected to reach the equhalent of nearly 2.000.000 h.p., wilbe carried over the biggest -transmission lino in the world to Los Angeles. 270 miles away. Enough water will bo obtained by next autumn to start the generation of electric power, but before then the dam is expected to prove extremely valuable in Hood control, protecting are., where widespread damage has been done in the

past. „ The Boulder Dam itself is one or Lie wonders of modern engineering. it is 727 ft. high. l.lSoft. wide at the top, where it is 15ii. thick and Usott. thick at the bus ?. which stands on solid rock. More than 3,000.000 cubic yards of concrete have been used in its construction; and 5,000 men have been eniPloved or. the work since 1930. When tho reservoir is full the water will bo nearly 600 ft. deep at the dam.