Hungry Horse Dam is an

arch dam An arch dam is a concrete dam that is curved upstream in plan. The arch dam is designed so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, causing the arch to straighten slightly and strengthe ...

in the

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, on the South Fork Flathead River in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

of northwest

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

. It is located in

Flathead National Forest The Flathead National Forest is a national forest in the western part of the U.S. state of Montana. The forest lies primarily in Flathead County, south of Glacier National Park. The forest covers of which about is designated wilderness. It i ...

in Flathead County, about south of the west entrance to Glacier National Park, southeast of Columbia Falls, and northeast of

Kalispell Kalispell (, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in, and the county seat of, Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at 24,558. In Montana's northwest region ...

. The Hungry Horse project, dam, and powerplant are operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The entrance road leading to the dam is located in Hungry Horse. The purposes of the Hungry Horse Project authorized by law are irrigation,

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

, navigation, streamflow regulation, hydroelectric generation, and other beneficial uses such as recreation. However, no irrigation facilities were built and the project has no irrigation obligations. Hydroelectric power generation and flood control are the primary purposes of the dam. The dam, reservoir, and surrounding area are used for recreation.

Dimensions and statistics

At in height, the dam was the third largest and second highest concrete dam in the world at the time of its completion in 1953, with a volume of . The dam's spillway is the highest morning glory structure in the world. The spillway is controlled by a The surface elevation of the reservoir is above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

History

Hungry Horse Dam under construction 2 - 9-15-1951

Construction was authorized by the Act of June 5, 1944 (58 Stat. 270, Public Law 78-329). In April 1948, Reclamation awarded the $43.4 million dam construction contract to Morrison-Knudsen, General Construction Company, and Shea Company. The Guy F. Atkinson Company won the contract to divert the river during dam construction. Two timber companies, Wixson and Crowe and J. H. Trisdale, cleared seven thousand acres to make way for the reservoir. Construction officially began with a weekend of ceremonies in June 1948. In September 1949, workers poured the first concrete. The project eventually used 3 million cubic yards of concrete. Engineers adopted air-entrained concrete to reduce the effect of freeze-thaw cycles and to make the material more stable and workable. They also incorporated fly ash into the concrete mix. Hungry Horse was the first dam built with these innovations. The construction claimed the lives of 23 men. Construction was completed on July 18, 1953. At a ceremony on October 1, 1952, President Harry S. Truman threw a switch to start power generation. The road across the dam opened to the public on November 2, 1953.

Hydroelectric power generation

The project contributes to hydroelectric power generation not only at Hungry Horse Dam, but by storing and releasing water for use by downriver hydroelectric dams on the Flathead, Clark Fork, Pend Oreille, and

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

rivers. About a billion kilowatt–hours are generated annually at Hungry Horse Dam, while in an average year the release water will generate about 4.6 billion kilowatt–hours of power as it passes through the series of downstream powerplants. Power generating facilities at Hungry Horse Dam are housed in a building constructed across the river channel at the downstream toe of the dam. The original design included four 71,250-kilowatt generators—a total of 285

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...

installed capacity. The generator capacity was uprated in the 1990s to 107,000 kilowatts each for a total capacity of 428 megawatts. Nearby and downstream, an

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

production plant was constructed in the mid-1950s, northeast of Columbia Falls.

Tributaries

The Hungry Horse Reservoir is fed by a number of smaller creeks and streams, including:

References

External links

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Historic American Engineering Record Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...