H D 75TH OOVER AM A H NNIVERSARY ISTORY S YMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOOVER DAM 75TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY SYMPOSIUM October 21–22, 2010 Las Vegas, Nevada SPONSORED BY The History and Heritage Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers EDITED BY Richard L. Wiltshire, P.E., F.ASCE David R. Gilbert, P.E., F.ASCE Jerry R. Rogers, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, Dist. M.ASCE 1801 ALEXANDER BELL DRIVE RESTON, VIRGINIA 20191–4400 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium (2010 : Las Vegas, Nev.) Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium : proceedings of the Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium, October 21-22, 2010, Las Vegas, Nevada / sponsored by the History and Heritage Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers ; edited by Richard L. Wiltshire, David R. Gilbert, Jerry R. Rogers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7844-1141-4 1. Hoover Dam (Ariz. and Nev.) -- Congresses. I. Wiltshire, Richard L. II. Gilbert, David R. III. Rogers, Jerry R. IV. American Society of Civil Engineers. Committee on History and Heritage of American Civil Engineering. V. Title. VI. Title: Hoover Dam Seventy-five Anniversary History Symposium. TC557.5.H6H684 2010 627'.820979313--dc22 2010035841 American Society of Civil Engineers 1801 Alexander Bell Drive Reston, Virginia, 20191-4400 www.pubs.asce.org Any statements expressed in these materials are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of ASCE, which takes no responsibility for any statement made herein. No reference made in this publication to any specific method, product, process, or service constitutes or implies an endorsement, recommendation, or warranty thereof by ASCE. The materials are for general information only and do not represent a standard of ASCE, nor are they intended as a reference in purchase specifications, contracts, regulations, statutes, or any other legal document. ASCE makes no representation or warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, concerning the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or utility of any information, apparatus, product, or process discussed in this publication, and assumes no liability therefore. This information should not be used without first securing competent advice with respect to its suitability for any general or specific application. Anyone utilizing this information assumes all liability arising from such use, including but not limited to infringement of any patent or patents. ASCE and American Society of Civil Engineers—Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Photocopies and reprints. You can obtain instant permission to photocopy ASCE publications by using ASCE’s online permission service (http://pubs.asce.org/permissions/requests/). Requests for 100 copies or more should be submitted to the Reprints Department, Publications Division, ASCE, (address above); email: [email protected]. A reprint order form can be found at http://pubs.asce.org/support/reprints/. Copyright © 2011 by the American Society of Civil Engineers. All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-0-7844-1141-4 Manufactured in the United States of America. Preface The dedication of Hoover Dam 75 years ago on September 30, 1935, culminated what many regard as the world’s greatest dam design and construction project of the 20th Century. Hoover Dam has remained highly regarded within the national and international civil engineering profession, which lead ASCE to designate Hoover Dam as its Monument of the Millennium dam in 2000 after a vote by ASCE’s members. Also, Hoover Dam has been designated an ASCE National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984, a National Historic Landmark in 1985, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Hoover Dam is still the highest concrete dam in the Western Hemisphere, was the world’s largest hydropower installation from 1939 to 1949, and annually produces over 4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which still ranks it as one of the largest hydropower installations in the USA. The sixteen papers included in these proceedings are a wide-ranging collection that gives the reader an excellent understanding of the outstanding engineers and the magnificent engineering and architecture that created Hoover Dam. There is probably no other dam in the world that has received as much public interest and press coverage as Hoover Dam. The hardships overcome by the engineers and the construction workers at the Black Canyon site are hard to imagine today, but President Roosevelt’s dedication speech on September 30, 1935, gives a good picture: “Ten years ago the place where we are gathered was an unpeopled, forbidding desert. In the bottom of a gloomy canyon, whose precipitous wall rose to a height of more than 1,000 feet, flowed a turbulent, dangerous river. The mountains on either side were difficult of access, with neither road nor trail, and their rocks were protected by neither trees nor grass from the blazing heat of the sun.” Since being established in 1964, ASCE’s History and Heritage Committee has sponsored and organized a number of symposiums intended to enhance and preserve the knowledge and appreciation of our civil engineering history and heritage. While many publications and books have been written about Hoover Dam, we hope this collection of symposium papers focused on the engineering associated with the design and construction of Hoover Dam, its performance over the last 75 years, and the lessons learned will be of historic value to civil engineers in the USA and internationally. The Steering Committee for the Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium included Richard L. Wiltshire (Symposium Chair), David R. Gilbert, and Dr. Jerry R. Rogers. The Steering Committee members reviewed and provided the authors with comments on the papers included in these proceedings. Richard L. Wiltshire, David R. Gilbert, and Dr. Jerry R. Rogers iii ivxlcdm Acknowledgements The Steering Committee for the Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the authors of the symposium papers in our proceedings publication. The authors have spent many hours in preparing and revising their papers, most of which will be presented at ASCE’s 140th Annual Civil Engineering Conference during its Hoover Dam 75th Anniversary History Symposium on October 21-22, 2010. These papers have been reviewed by the members of the Steering Committee who put in their valuable time and helped make these papers even better – thank you. The Steering Committee would also like to acknowledge the assistance of ASCE’s Carol Reese, the History and Heritage Committee’s Liaison, and Donna Dickert of ASCE’s Book Production Department. iv Contents Keynote Paper Politics and Dam Safety: The St. Francis Dam Disaster and the Boulder Canyon Project Act ................................................................................................................. 1 Donald C. Jackson Politics, Economics, Technology, and History Building Blocks of Hoover Dam: Technology, Politics, Economics ................................... 25 Brit Allan Storey The New Town of Boulder City: City Planning and Infrastructure Engineering for Hoover Dam Workers ..................................................................................................... 40 Jerry R. Rogers Reclamation, the Army, and Hoover Dam during World War II ..................................... 48 Jim Bailey Concrete Technology Advances in Mass Concrete Technology—The Hoover Dam Studies ............................... 58 Timothy P. Dolen Long-Term Properties of Hoover Dam Mass Concrete ..................................................... 74 Katie Bartojay and Westin Joy Engineering, Hydraulics, and Structural Hoover Dam: Evolution of the Dam’s Design ..................................................................... 85 J. David Rogers Hoover Dam: First Joint Venture and Construction Milestones in Excavation, Geology, Materials Handling, and Aggregates ................................................................. 124 J. David Rogers Hoover Dam: Construction Milestones in Concrete Delivery and Placement, Steel Fabrication, and Job Site Safety ............................................................................... 163 J. David Rogers Hoover Dam: Operational Milestones, Lessons Learned, and Strategic Import ........... 189 J. David Rogers Hoover Dam: Scientific Studies, Name Controversy, Tourist Attraction, and Contributions to Engineering ..................................................................................... 216 J. David Rogers 75 Years of Hydraulic Investigations—Hoover Dam ....................................................... 249 Philip H. Burgi v Performance of Spillway Structures Using Hoover Dam Spillways As a Benchmark .................................................................................................................. 267 William R. Fiedler Seismic Evaluation of Hoover Dam Powerplant .............................................................. 288 Adam Toothman, David Gold, Tim Brown, and Mary Beth Schuetz Civil Engineers, Architecture, and Construction Frank Crowe: General Superintendent of the Six Companies, Inc. Hoover Dam Project ......................................................................................................................... 307 Philip Dunn, Jr. Engineering and the Sculptural Program of Hoover Dam .............................................. 318 Alfred Willis Megaproject Success: Hoover Dam Construction and Pre-Construction Management Ingenuity ....................................................................................................... 329 John Walewski and Hessam Sadatsafavi Construction Management of a Mega Project .................................................................. 340 Charles R. Parrish The Construction of Hoover Dam: A Case Study from a Builder’s Perspective ........... 346 Tamiko Powell-Melhado, Michael Hein, and Linda Cain Ruth Building Hoover Dam (Men, Machines, and Methods) ................................................... 360 Raymond Paul Giroux Indexes Author Index ......................................................................................................................... 411 Subject Index ....................................................................................................................... 413 vi Politics and Dam Safety: The St. Francis Dam Disaster and the Boulder Canyon Project Act Donald C. Jackson1, Ph.D. 1Professor of History, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, 18042, [email protected] ABSTRACT: In March 1928, the U.S. Congress was poised to approve the Boulder Canyon Project Act (BCPA) and authorize federal support for building what would become Hoover Dam. California Congressman Phil Swing and Senator Hiram Johnson had championed the BCPA since the early 1920s and now – despite continued opposition from private power interests and Arizona politicians – their politicking appeared ready to bear fruit. But minutes before midnight on March 12th the St. Francis Dam gave way, releasing a deadly torrent down the Santa Clara Valley in Southern California and killing more than 400 people. This paper examines the relationship of Los Angeles (and St. Francis Dam designer William Mulholland) to the BCPA, and considers how a key investigation of the disaster was tied to the proposed Hoover/Boulder Dam. While assessing the technology of concrete curved gravity dam design in the 1920s, it also considers how the disaster prompted authorization of a special Colorado River Board and delayed congressional passage of the BCPA until December 1928. It concludes with consideration of how the disaster spurred revision of California’s dam safety regulations and professional concerns this initiative engendered among members of the ASCE. INTRODUCTION Shortly before midnight on March 12, 1928, the 205-foot high St. Francis Dam collapsed and during the early morning hours of March 13th, 38,000 acre-feet of water surged from the reservoir. Wreaking havoc through San Francisquito Canyon and Southern California’s Santa Clara Valley, by the time the flood washed into the Pacific Ocean (some fifty-five miles downriver), over 400 people lay dead. Considered one of the greatest civil-engineering disasters in United States history, the St. Francis Dam tragedy generated intense interest not only because of the deaths and destruction it caused, but also because it involved the failure of a concrete curved gravity dam, the design type then planned for the massive Hoover/Boulder Dam on the Colorado River.1 The disaster emboldened critics of the Boulder Canyon Project, in no small part because William Mulholland, longtime head of Los Angeles's Bureau of Water Works and Supply (BWWS) and the official in charge of the failed dam’s design and construction, had been prominently involved in advocating the Boulder 1 0123456789 2 HOOVER DAM 75TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY SYMPOSIUM Canyon Project Act (BCPA, popularly known as the Swing/Johnson Act in recognition of its primary supporters, California Congressman Phil Swing and California Senator Hiram Johnson). This paper is not intended to tell the full story of either the St. Francis tragedy or the complex political interactions that underlay federal approval of the BCPA, but it does bring to the forefront an appreciation of how the St. Francis Dam collapse – and the subsequent engineering investigation authorized by California Governor C. C. Young – were tied to the BCPA. And it serves as a reminder that politics and safety, particularly as they involve large public works projects, are not always easily separated.2 ORIGINS OF HOOVER/BOULDER DAM Hoover/Boulder Dam is rooted in a privately-financed project to irrigate Southern California’s Imperial Valley. Starting in 1900 the Colorado Development Company diverted water from the Colorado River to nourish a huge tract of desert land just north of the California/Mexico border.3 Soon thousands of acres of in the Imperial Valley were “under the ditch” and the company’s prospects appeared bright. However, the company’s canal connecting to the Colorado River kept clogging with silt.4 Because silt accumulation was worst in the section of the canal closest to the river – and because the company sought to move the headgates beyond U.S. jurisdiction in order to more readily irrigate land in Mexican territory – in 1904 the company excavated a more direct opening at a site a few miles south of the California/Mexico border.5 To the company’s misfortune, in June 1905 heavy storms washed away the new headgates and soon the entire flow of the river was pouring into the Imperial Valley and the Salton Sink. Eventually, the flooding was brought under control by the Southern Pacific Railway Company but it took almost two years to close the breach. In the meantime, thousands of acres of low lying land were inundated under what is now known as the Salton Sea.6 By 1909, the California Development Company had transferred most of its assets to the Southern Pacific and, in 1916, the recently formed Imperial Irrigation District purchased the water supply system from the railroad.7 Once the flooding had stopped, agricultural production resumed. Nonetheless, fear that a devastating uncontrolled “break” might recur was never far from the minds of valley residents and investors alike. Soon the district began clamoring for federally- supported flood protection. Although the federal government had refrained from fighting the floods of 1905-07, the lower Colorado River had not been ignored by the Reclamation Service. As early as 1902, Arthur Powell Davis (at that time Assistant Chief Engineer of the Service) had considered development of the basin.8 For many years the issue of a major storage dam across the lower Colorado River was overshadowed by other Reclamation Service projects, but by the end of World War I the Service was seeking new venues for its dam-building skills. In 1915 Davis became Director of the Reclamation Service and he appreciated that controlling the lower Colorado could involve construction of one of the largest dams in the world. At the urging of the Imperial Irrigation District, in May 1920 Congress authorized the Reclamation Service to develop preliminary plans for a Colorado River storage dam. HOOVER DAM 75TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY SYMPOSIUM 3 In 1922, these plans spawned the “Fall/Davis Report” a major study prepared under the auspices of Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall and Reclamation Service Director Davis. In the report, Davis advocated hydroelectric power development because only power revenues could repay construction costs with any degree of certainty. From a practical point-of-view, the development of hydroelectricity made sense as a dam over 500 feet high and impounding more than 20 million acre-feet of water could generate many millions of kilowatt hours per year. But from a political perspective, the use of power revenues to finance the dam invited controversy. Privately-financed companies controlled America’s electric power grid in the 1920s and they viewed askance any legislation that would authorize a huge federal dam financed by hydroelectric power.9 As historian Paul Kleinsorge later noted: “The controversy over the power aspects of the [Boulder Canyon] project… [involved] a clamorous argument that took on the aspects of a nation-wide debate, chiefly because it involved the whole question of whether or not the federal government should enter large-scale power production activities . . .”10 In the face of opposition from private power interests, the Fall/Davis Report nonetheless advocated construction of a high dam and hydroelectric powerplant in the vicinity of Boulder Canyon. [Note: both Boulder Canyon and Black Canyon (lying about twenty miles downstream) feature dramatic, narrow gorges with steep granite walls extending upwards for several hundred feet. While initial investigations focused on Boulder Canyon, by at least 1924 Service engineers recognized that the Black Canyon dam site was preferable and – despite retention of the name Boulder or Boulder Canyon Dam – this became the site where the dam was built.11] LOS ANGELES AND THE METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUHERN CALIFORNIA (MWD) Between the initiation of the project in the early 1920s and congressional authorization in December 1928, the City of Los Angeles and other southern California communities assumed an essential role in promoting the Boulder Canyon Project. As early as July 1921 Los Angeles had expressed interest in helping build Boulder Canyon Dam in return for control over the hydroelectric power plant.12 And by 1924 this interest had expanded into a formal water claim filed on the city’s behalf for 1,”500 cubic feet per second of Colorado River flow.13 With this claim, the City of Los Angeles served as the catalyst for the Colorado River Aqueduct and for what evolved into the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). Most importantly in terms of Congressional approval for the Boulder Canyon Project, the MWD would comprise the most important customer for hydropower. As noted in the MWD’s first annual report: “It was early recognized that to secure favorable [congressional] consideration [the BCP] must be self-supporting and that the power to be generated from any development… must find a market which would eventually return all costs of the entire project to the Government. As