Colorado River Glen Canyon Dam

In the Colorado River Glen Canyon Dam was one of the biggest manmade projects created. The dam stands 710 feet tall and consists of 4,901,000 cubic yards of concrete.

Glen Canyon Dam Construction

The Glen Canyon Dam construction began in 1956 and had an estimated cost of $756 million dollars. Before construction there was no way to get across the canyon so the construction crew was forced to drive 200 miles to get from 1 side to the other.

By 1959 a bridge was created and it allowed workers to cross over from one side to the other much faster. Shortly after trucks began to cross the bridge and dump concrete into the dam. Each buckets could hold 24 tons of concrete and it took over 400,000 buckets to fill the dam.

To reach this goal, there where workers managing the project every day and night for 3 years. The dam was finally able to stop the flow of water in 1963.

Impact

The dam provides electricity and water storage for parts of southwest America. It produces enough energy to supply 13% of Utah’s power needs or 6% of Arizona’s power needs. Building the dam also had a severe impact on wildlife. Because of the Dam the natural floods that occurred throughout the area no longer exists. This lead to non-native plants growing and disturbing the ecosystem.

To prevent this from happening control floods are a regular occurrence near the dam.

Visiting

Everyone is welcome to visit, tours may last over 1 hour and take you directly into the dam, very interesting experience. For more information about the dam contact the Glen Canyon Field Division.

(520) 645-2481

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