Scientific American | April 1st, 1922
Summary
Already, the electrical engineer has shown how the snows of the high Sierras can be transformed into energizing current distributable for hundreds of miles through a S
Already, the electrical engineer has shown how the snows of the high Sierras can be transformed into energizing current distributable for hundreds of miles through a State which i s notably deficient in deposits of power-producing coal. Similarly, this same technicist is busy planning ways by which the widely diversified flow of the second largest of our rivers, the Colorado, may be stabilized and utilized to operate a number of immense, hydroelectric stations.
The Colorado River drains a watershed covering fully 250,000 square miles, and in the course of a twelvemonth its run-off amounts to 16,000,000 acre-feet of water. The States affected by the movement of the Colorado are Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and California. Normally, the Colorado runs to extremes : in dry seasons it is low and its speed of travel comparatively sluggish, but when the melting snows and rains of the wet months pour their fullness into the far-flung basin the river becomes a raging, torrential stream capable of doing an enormous amount of damage. Uncontrolled, this great waterway is a continual menace to the lives and the property of dwellers in the Imperial Valley and in the adjacent lands, lying below the level of the sea and situated both in the United States and in Mexico.