The making of a multiple purpose dam : engineering culture, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and Grand Coulee Dam, 1917-1942

Abstract

This dissertation examines how Americans have transformed the environment through the construction of new technologies and the roles of technical professionals in bringing about these changes. In the twentieth century, federal engineers, working with local Western boosters and their federal superiors, transformed the West's waterscape. Between 1900 and 1970, engineers of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation--only one of three federal agencies that built dams-constructed over 400. On the Columbia River alone, federal engineers constructed thirteen large dams that turned the nation's fourth largest river into a chain of lakes. Engineers wrought this transformation with multiple purpose dams-a new style of dam building in the twentieth century. This style combined a new way of understanding how dams should be used with new approaches to financing the construction of dams and to designing and siting dam structures. Engineers built dams that developed water resources for multiple uses: navigation, flood control, irrigation, and hydroelectricity production. They financed these dams by allocating the costs among uses and then obtaining funds either through federal grants (for navigation and flood control) or loans (for irrigation and hydroelectricity). Engineers frequently designed these dams as traditional concrete gravity structures and sited them at prime locations on major rivers. This work examines the rise of the multiple purpose style of dam building through the history of Grand Coulee Dam. Located on the Columbia River in Washington State, Grand Coulee Dam is one in a group of large dams planned in the 1920s and built in the 1930s during whose design and construction federal engineers worked out this new style of building. It shows that engineers came to prefer this style because it fulfilled conservationists' hopes for "comprehensive planning" of water resources and it eliminated financial problems with federal irrigation activities. Engineers alone did not launch this building program: local constituencies favored development and Franklin Roosevelt's new administration supported relief projects, conservation programs, and government involvement in the electrical industry. Working together, these three groups built a political coalition for multiple purpose dams that successfully underpinned expanded building.