Hoover Dam ‘May Have to be Turned Around’

Lake Mead is now at its lowest level for 50 years.

With record droughts continuing in the USA’s Western States, planners are having to consider radical solutions to safeguard future water and energy supplies.

Lake Mead (created in the 1930s when Hoover Dam was built) is at its lowest level since first being filled.  The distinctine ‘bathtub ring’ around the lake grows by about 10 feet per year.

The US Bureau of Reclamation has responsibility for the Dam, and is reported to be in near-crisis talks with the States of Nevada and Arizona, as well as the Federal Government.

One extreme option – which is nevertheless gaining some traction – is for the Dam to be demolished and rebuilt facing the other way.  This would be necessary if the water in the Lake falls below that of the water level downstream of the Dam.

‘At its present rate, the Lake will fall below the downstream waters of the Colorado River in around 15 years’ said a spokesman.  At that point, the Dam will become ineffective at providing energy from its turbines – as they will have no water flowing through to power them’.  

‘It may be possible to rebuild the Dam facing the other direction, with the base ‘built down’ about 50 feet to allow downstream waters to flow back into the Lake – through the Dam’s turbines.

A series of pumps would be installed downstream, to reverse the flow of the River (which currently drains into the Pacific Ocean to the West, due to the ‘Continental Divide’).

The cost of the project has been estimated at $20 billion, and would take around five years.  It is rumoured that Donald Trump has expressed an interest in bidding.  He already has extensive interests in Las Vegas – fifty miles to the West of Hoover Dam – and is thought to be keen to add to his portfolio of real estate, golf courses and dams in the region.

Hoover Dam when last at full capacity in the 1990s.