hoover dam

hoover dam 12.22.09

city form: civil engineering

There would be no Las Vegas as we know it without the Hoover Dam. Begun in 1928 as the Boulder Canyon Project, the massive piece of infrastructure that resulted is a 727 ft. arch gravity dam that provides flood control, water storage, silt control and energy production. Lake Mead, created to contain 32,350,000 acre-ft. of water storage, is the largest artificial lake in the world—585 ft. deep and 115 miles in length. There is enough storage capacity in Lake Mead to cover the entire state of Connecticut in water 10 ft. deep, or enough to give every person in the world 5000 gallons.
Instead, much of it goes to Los Angeles via the Colorado Aqueduct. One of the three major aqueduct systems that make Los Angeles possible, the aqueduct carries water 242 miles and lifts it 1,617 feet through five pumping plants. There are 92 miles of tunnels, 63 miles of concrete canals, and 55 miles of concrete conduits. The Hoover Dam also supplies L.A. with much of its electricity.