Hoover Dam
The Hoover Dam is one of America¡¦s greatest civil engineering marvels (Hernan 22) and ¡§has become a magnet to those fascinated by human ingenuity at its best¡¨ (Haussler 30). With its enormous size and construction during the Great Depression, it was an interesting topic to me. I would like to major in civil engineering and, at first, I was researching this topic. I was looking for salary and job descriptions. Then, I discovered the name John L. Savage, the engineer who supervised the design of the Hoover Dam and many other dams in the United States. Savage worked on the Minidoka irrigation project in Idaho after joining the United States Reclamation Service in 1903. His future of building dams first began "When I first went out to the Snake River Valley,¡¨ he said, ¡§I saw only a river and a lot of wasteland. After the dam was up the land changed. It got water. Farmers moved in to work the soil. Crops grew. Then came villages and towns. That's why I think this is the happiest, most thrilling work in the world¡¨ (qtd. in McCann). The characteristics he describes are evident to me, as well as other people in this field. All of the great buildings and projects of the World were overseen by civil engineers. These water resources projects, such as the Hoover Dam, not only disturbed the flow of rivers but created towns, industries, and even developed a desert region. Unfortunately, the dams can also cause adverse effects.
The Colorado River may have been ¡§too thick to drink [and] too wet to plow¡¨ (Boris 4) but, it was not too strong to dam. The Boulder Canyon Project was first conceived in 1928 (Wassner 98) and was approved for flood control, storage of the Colorado River water, and the production of hydroelectric power (Hoover Dam - FAQs). John R. Hall explains that the Hoover dam was built ¡§to harness the awesome power of the Colorado River¡¨ (22). The Department of Reclamation had a huge task on their hands when supervising the construction of the Hoover Dam (Hall 22), previously known as Boulder Dam and changed to Hoover Dam for President Herbert Hoovers strong support of a Dam on the Colorado River (Wassner 97). First, before even breaking ground, there had to be away to easily access the dam site and house the six-thousand workers who will build the great dam. Boulder City was created to house the Government and contractor ...
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With Hoover¡¦s seventeen generators and extremely large water supply, cities were able to grow very rapidly. The hydroelectric turbines produce four billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. According to the American Society of Engineers, the dam has had a huge part in the development of the southwestern United States (American Society). It has stopped flooding, provided water for human consumption and agriculture, and supplied electricity to three states, according to Wassner: Arizona, Nevada, and California (99). Amazingly, power hungry Las Vegas only receives one percent of the power from Hoover Dam. For having such a great impact on the lives of Americans the American Society of Civil Engineers honored the Hoover dam as the Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium. Written on September 27, 2001 the article states ¡§The new millennium reminds us of the tremendous impact civil engineering has had on the development of our society [. . .] It is fitting that the Hoover Dam would be chosen by ASCE for this special honor. [The dam] ushered in a new era of confidence in the design and building of great water resource projects¡¨ (American Society).
In December 1936 the United States Department of the Interior authorized the Lower Colorado River Authority to construct a low dam at the site of an old crossing on the river known as Marshall Ford. Marshall Ford Dam was completed in 1941 through the collaboration of the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) of Texas. The original purpose of the dam was to prevent floods from devastating Austin, TX. The capital city had substandard heavy damage from previous floods since its establishment in 1846. Soon bureaucrats came together to create the Colorado River Project, wanting to create a series of dams along the Colorado River to create hydroelectric power and serve to control floods and droughts. With Buchanan dam well under way with a total of six planned Marshall Ford was the only dam designed primarily for flood control and the only dam in which USBR oversaw construction. With money scarce there was debate over the final height dam and it reservoir capacity. This issue resolves itself with the flood of 1938. Once completed Marshall Ford Dam would flood 65 miles of the Colorado to form Lake Travis, creating the largest of the seven reservoirs known as the Highland Lakes.
According to Dams as Aid author Ann Usher (1997), “a man-made dam is a cement wall that blocks the natural flow of a river” (p. 3).
The one feature common to the Hoover Dam, the Mississippi River and the Three Gorges Dam is that they all try to control nature’s swings, specifically in the form of flooding. Before the Hoover dam was built, the Colorado river “used to flood spectacularly.but after 1900 the Colorado provoked a vehement response” (Pg 177). The response was simple, but large. The U.S. built several large dams, including the Hoover dam, on the Colorado to decrease its flooding and increase power and irrigation. Unfortunately, just as human control of the Colorado’s flooding increased, its organisms and habitats were detrimentally influenced, and the water became more and more salinated.
Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in Washington State, built by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser It is among the most famous dams in the United States. The reservoir it created is called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Lake. The reservoir is named after the United States President who seemed to love dams and hydroelectric power and who was involved with the project through to the final completion of the dam. The dam was built as part of the Columbia Basin Project as a way to irrigate the desert areas of the Northwest United States. The dam started during the 1930s as a public works project and finished toward the beginning of World War Two. The initial construction plan was reconfigured during construction for more height. Its height was determined by the point at which the water from the reservoir began backing up into Canada. The scope and size of the dam is hard to comprehend. It is over a mile long and taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza, in fact, all the pyramids at Giza can fit within the base of the Grand Coulee Dam. The dam is so large that a truck at the base looks like a toy, this creates some perspective into the dam's true size. When the dam was completed in the early 1940s it was the largest dam in the world.
In the 1898 mayoral election, Frederick Eaton was elected as mayor of Los Angeles; and appointed his associate, William Mulholland- the superintendent of the newly created Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Eaton and Mulholland envisioned a region of Los Angeles that would make Los Angeles become the turn of the century. The limiting factor of that regions growth was water supply. Eaton and Mulholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, and a gravity-fed aqueduct that could deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles. During the early 1900’s the United States Bureau of Reclamation made plans to build an irrigation system to help the farmers of the Owens Valley. By 1905, through purchases, and alleged intimidation and bribery, Los Angeles purchased enough water rights to enable construction of the aqueduct.
Whether one watches the movie and then reads the poem, or does the opposite, it is almost too easy to spot the differences in the story and the two cultures. Beowulf is very descriptive but at the same time leaves a lot to the reader to imagine. It can also be considered, in some ways, a tall tale, as no human being can swim while carrying 30 pieces of armour. “But Beowulf's prodigious gifts as a swimmer guaranteed his safety: he arrived at the shore, shouldering thirty battle-dresses, the booty he had won.” Narrator, 2359-2362. The Beowulf in the poem is also materialistic, greedy, and ruthless. The Beowulf in Beowulf and Grendel isn’t slaying monsters for the gold and fame. He is also sympathetic to Grendel when he realized that he, to, had feelings and a family. At the end of the movie he lights a funeral pyre for Grendel as Grendel’s son watches from a distance. The story was more than likely changed to fit the likes of today’s audience, as we can relate more to compassion and realism than we can heartlessness and
Dams made from dirt are very weak and the South Fork dam was built entirely with dirt. From an engineering standpoint dams made with dirt needed to be built ...
American Exceptionalism: The Cultural Problem of Anti-Americanism in the Competitive Market Trends of the Global Business Community
The thirties was a time of anxiety -- after the major stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression was sparked. The economy is in the dumps, crime rate increased, mass migrations occurred, and much more. This despair inducing time caused a majority of the American people to be poor, or if they were rich before the incident, they would at least have a much less amount of money than they had before. Many people were looking for jobs, but the country did not have any jobs to offer them. Then soon enough, the president at the time, Herbert Hoover, issued the creation of the Hoover Dam, which had opened up a large amount of jobs for the people. Sure, the job was extremely dangerous -- hundreds died in the creation of the large dam -- but the people needed money. They would’ve done almost anything in the economic grave that they dug themselves in at this point. They originally hired mostly Chinese immigrants to build the dam, but soon enough, more people in need of money were up for the job. They also started using concrete for the Hoover Dam, which has stuck until today’s time, in which most buildings are made up of concrete. Concrete is so relied on today due to its toughness and durability. The Hoover Dam popularized the use of concrete in building.
Pichanick, Valerie. Harriet Martineau: The Woman and Her Work 1802-1876 University of Michigan Press, 1980.
The invention of computers has made a huge change in human civilization and society, by changing the way people think. Computers replaced jobs and tedious repetitive thoughts that were done by human originally. People became more and more reliant on computers, and thus, computers became essential to our lives. Computers can manufacture products quickly, and eliminate possible human errors. As technology progresses, new ideas have been brought into computer to make them perform more efficiently. Also, scientists and engineers tend to make things “smaller”, so we can enjoy the benefits from electronic devices anywhere and anytime. Therefore, size and efficiency are two main points for consumers. Desktop computer and laptop computer are representatives for each of these concepts. Although desktops and laptops come from the same origin, they are different in many ways.
The movie stuck to the main story of Beowulf, but it still had many differences. The movie brought the poem to reality with its own twist on the story of Beowulf. From the appearance of Hrothgar and Grendel’s mom, to the journey of the dragon. There are many differences and similarities locked into one Legend.
[HAN] In Korea the summer is so hot, and the winter is so cold. Really cold, so they are so different. In America the temperatures stay closer together, it?s way better.
"The Future of Hydropower." Macalester College: Private Liberal Arts College. Web. 03 Oct. 2011. .
North Korea is a peninsula made up of mountainous terrain with narrow valleys and has bodies of water on both its eastern and western sides. The western sides are the lowland plains of the country while the eastern side has a narrow coastal region with steep mountains (Korean Cultural Orientation, 2009, p. 5). The country only covers 47,250 square miles and is only about 20 percent bigger than South Korea. The bulk of the population resides on only one-fourth of the land due to the terrain and living conditions (Operational Cultural Awareness Training – North Korea, 2008, p