The History Of Large Federal Dams

Explores the story of Federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction.

The history of federal involvement in dam construction goes back at least to the 1820s, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built wing dams to improve navigation on the Ohio River. The work expanded after the Civil War, when Congress authorized the Corps to build storage dams on the upper Mississippi River and regulatory dams to aid navigation on the Ohio River. In 1902, when Congress established the Bureau of Reclamation (then called the “Reclamation Service”), the role of the federal government increased dramatically. Subsequently, large Bureau of Reclamation dams dotted the Western landscape. Together, Reclamation and the Corps have built the vast majority of major federal dams in the United States. These dams serve a wide variety of purposes. Historically, Bureau of Reclamation dams primarily served water storage and delivery requirements, while U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams supported navigation and flood control. For both agencies, hydropower production had become an important secondary function. This history explores the story of federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction by carefully selecting those dams and river systems that seem particularly critical to the story. Written by three distinguished historians, the history will interest engineers, historians, cultural resource planners, water resource planners and others interested in the challenges facing dam builders. At the same time, the history also addresses some of the negative environmental consequences of dam-building, a series of problems that today both Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seek to resolve.

The history of federal involvement in dam construction goes back at least to the 1820s, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built wing dams to improve navigation on the Ohio River. The work expanded after the Civil War, when Congress authorized the Corps to build storage dams on the upper Mississippi River and regulatory dams to aid navigation on the Ohio River. In 1902, when Congress established the Bureau of Reclamation (then called the "Reclamation Service"), the role of the federal government increased dramatically. Subsequently, large Bureau of Reclamation dams dotted the Western landscape. Together, Reclamation and the Corps have built the vast majority of major federal dams in the United States. These dams serve a wide variety of purposes. Historically, Bureau of Reclamation dams primarily served water storage and delivery requirements, while U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams supported navigation and flood control. For both agencies, hydropower production has become an important secondary function. This history explores the story of federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction by carefully selecting those dams and river systems that seem particularly critical to the story. Written by three distinguished historians, the history will interest engineers, historians, cultural resource planners, water resource planners and others interested in the challenges facing dam builders. At the same time, the history also addresses some of the negative environmental consequences of dam-building, a series of problems that today both Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seek to resolve. Chapter 1 - "Improving" Rivers in America: From the Revolution to the Progressive Era - Rivers in Early America * Chapter 2 - Theories and Competing Visions for Concrete Dams * Chapter 3 - Early Multipurpose Dams: Roosevelt and the Reclamation Service, Wilson and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers * Chapter 4 - The Boulder Canyon Project, Water Development in the Colorado River Basin, and Hoover Dam * Chapter 5 - Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams and The Columbia River Control Plan * Chapter 6 - Earth Dams on the Missouri River: Fort Peck and Garrison Dams and the Pick-Sloan Plan * Chapter 7: The Central Valley Project: Shasta and Friant Dams * Chapter 8 - Dams for Navigation and Flood: Tygart and Mainstem Dams on the Ohio, Upper Mississippi, and Tennessee Rivers * Chapter 9 - The Environmental Impact of the Big Dam Era Rivers as Resource: The American Watershed System * The Rise of an Industrializing Nation * The Origins of Federal Water Resource Policy * WATER LAW AND THE USE OF RIVERS * Mills and Dams in the Early Industrial Era * Water Law in the West * The Western Setting * The California Doctrine: 1851-1886 * THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY * The Corps and the French Engineering Tradition * Commerce, Navigation and the "Steamboat Case" * French Tradition versus Frontier Techniques * Navigation and the Beginning of River Dams: 1824-1865 * Postwar Navigation and the Ohio River: 1866-1885 * The Upper Mississippi and the Headwater Dams:1866-1899 * WATER IN THE WEST: ORIGINS OF THE RECLAMATION SERVICE * The West Before the Nineteenth Century * Water and Mormon Migration * California Water Development * The Exploits of John Wesley Powell * The Sentimental and Practical during the 1890s * The Chittenden Survey of 1897 * Newell, Roosevelt and the Move to Reclamation * PROGRESSIVISM

This history explores the story of federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction by carefully selecting those dams and river systems that seem particularly critical to the story. The history also addresses some of the negative environmental consequences of dam-building, a series of problems that today both Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seek to resolve.

"The objectives of the study were twofold: a history of federal dam development, concentrating on key projects and river systems, and the drafting of documents to assist cultural resource managers and others interested in nominating dams to the National Historic Landmarks program"--Preface.

The massive dams of the American West were designed to serve multiple purposes: improving navigation, irrigating crops, storing water, controlling floods, and generating hydroelectricity. Their construction also put thousands of people to work during the Great Depression. Only later did the dams’ baneful effects on river ecologies spark public debate. Big Dams of the New Deal Era tells how major water-storage structures were erected in four western river basins. David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson reveal how engineering science, regional and national politics, perceived public needs, and a river’s natural features intertwined to create distinctive dams within each region. In particular, the authors describe how two federal agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, became key players in the creation of these important public works. By illuminating the mathematical analysis that supported large-scale dam construction, the authors also describe how and why engineers in the 1930s most often opted for massive gravity dams, whose design required enormous quantities of concrete or earth-rock fill for stability. Richly illustrated, Big Dams of the New Deal Era offers a compelling account of how major dams in the New Deal era restructured the landscape—both politically and physically—and why American society in the 1930s embraced them wholeheartedly.

"In Southern Rivers: Restoring America's Freshwater Biodiversity, R. Scot Duncan explores the environmental history and future of the rivers of the southeastern United States. These river systems are the epicenter of North American freshwater biodiversity and the top global hotspot for several aquatic taxa including mussels, turtles, snails, crayfish, and temperate zone fish; these rivers also play a prominent role in the region's history, culture, and economy. Unfortunately, centuries of industrialization have impaired the region's river systems, sacrificing biodiversity and compromising their ability to provide essential ecosystem services like drinking water, waste disposal, irrigation, navigation, and power production to human communities. And now overall waterflow is diminishing in the Southeast due to increasing heat and drought brought by climate change. As these and other threats to the region's water supply increase, it may seem necessary to prioritize between using water for natural resource conservation or reserving it for human concerns-but Duncan argues this is a false choice. Combining nature, science, and stories in a series of short, illustrated chapters, Southern Rivers takes readers on an illuminating journey of the Southeast's river systems and the many communities that depend on them. Duncan cogently articulates the challenges threatening rivers, streams, and wetlands in the face of the planet's accelerating climate and extinction crises, then turns to explore the new solutions conservationists and water managers have developed to preserve them. Ultimately, the book is both a call to action and a clear, comprehensive, practical plan to help the Southeast save its water resources and adapt to climate change by restoring the very biodiversity that is now under threat"--