DREAM COMES TRUE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22089, 20 April 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

DREAM COMES TRUE

- DESERT TRANSFORMED THE GREAT BOULDER DAM COLORADO RIVER HARNESSED SCHEME COSTING £80.000,000 Boulder Dam, tho most gigantic irrigation and water-power scheme ever attempted, has been completed, states a correspondent of the Sunday 7 Express, London. For''a generation American engineers hive dreamed of harnessing tho Colorado -River. With the closing of tho sluices which will stem the waters roaring down from tho Grand Canyon, where Nevada, Colorado and California meet, their dream has come true. As a result of it, the people of the United States are looking forward to the time when 1000 square miles of tho most arid and barren land in America will be supporting a population of 5,000,000, and be one of tho wealthiest and most prosperous areas in the United States.

The mind reels at the great expense involved in the construction of the dam. The actual dam has cost £30,000,000. With the collateral works the total cost is £70,000,000. Finally it will bo £80,000,000. The cost of tho Panama Canal was only £72,000,000. Huge Concrete Wedge

The height of the dam is 750 ft—- . than twice the height of the cross on the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. It forms a wedge of solid concrete, thicker than the average frontngo of a modern block of flats, thrown across a gorge 2000 ft. wide. Four .million four hundred thousand cubic yards of concrete were used in its construction.

The vast reservoir is 115 miles long mid covers an area of 145,000 acres, which is roughly the area of the county of Middlesex. It is estimated that it will take three years to fill. When it is full there will be enough water in it to submerge 32,500,000 acres of land to r depth of one foot. That is approximately the area of the whole of England.

Apart from the irrigation scheme, plans have been made to establish a hydro-electric plant capable of producing 1,000,000 horse-power. Compared with the Boulder Dam tho schemes for hydro-electric production and water conservation in Britain arc insignificant. The Lochaber electricity scheme in the Scottish Highlands cost £5,000,000, with a plant capable of producing 50,000 horse-power. The Shannon scheme in Ireland cost £3,000,000. The Galloway scheme, which is to pour electric power into the north of England, cost £3,000,000. " Little Human Life in Vicinity When tho Manchester Corporation dam at Ha.wes Beck is completed the surface area 'of Hawes Water will be only 1000 acres, compared with the 145.000 acres behind the Boulder Dam.

There is nothing in Britain comparable, even in imagination, to the Boulder Dam, unless it bo the proposal to harness the tides in the estuary of the River Severn to generate electricity at a cost of £38,000,000.

Seven States in America will benefit by the completion of the scheme. They are Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California. The area which will be affected by the irrigation scheme is almost devoid of human life. It is a country given over to lizards, horned toads, solitary prospectors and mirages.

Yet the Colorado basin is immensely rich in precious metals and valuable minerals. Every State in the area has plans for more fertile acres, more dams and more reservoirs. South California plans to double her agricultural population in five years. Nevada dreams of great mills and factories hung on the precipitous walls of its canyons. Another Great Scheme Another gigantic dam has been begun at Grand Coulee, on the Columbia River, in the State of Washington. It is estimated that when the scheme is completed the cost will be £35,000,000. The Coulee Dam scheme is part of the " New Deal." " We are going to see with our own eyes," said President Roosevelt, when he inaugurated it, " electricity and power made so cheap that they will become standard articles of uso, not only for manufacturing and agriculture, but for every home."