"Preface" [2020] ELECD 53; in Kornfeld, Itzchak (ed), "Mega-Dams and Indigenous Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) vi

Book Title: Mega-Dams and Indigenous Human Rights

Editor(s): Kornfeld, Itzchak

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 13

Extract:

Preface

1. THE HOOVER DAM

Several years ago, I drove from Las Vegas to the Hoover Dam. The
30-odd-mile trip, which takes some 45 minutes, snakes down Nevada Route
93, the Great Basin Highway, in a southeasterly direction, past the town of
Henderson. Departing Las Vegas, which sits at an elevation of approximately
2,000 feet (610 meters), one drives along the spine of the edge of the Basin and
Range province, towards a 400-foot (122 meters) elevation at the Hoover Dam.
Remember, the dam is at river level.
Once I had parked the car in the Boulder Dam Bridge parking lot, I walked
across what, today, is the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge
Plaza (Figure 0.1) and saw the four towers that rise out of the water like appar-
itions (Figure 0.2). These towers measure 338 feet (103 meters) high, and are
the dam's water intake towers. They stand, upright, like soldiers in formation,
in the waters of Lake Mead, the dam's reservoir, which is situated behind the
Hoover Dam (Figure 0.2).
I stood on the dam's rim, with the other tourists that gathered that day,
and then peered down this concrete marvel's 726-feet (221 meters) height,
67 stories down into the abyss of the diverted Colorado River (Figure 0.1).
According to our tour guide, the dam has two pipes, which are like tunnels,
and each of which can easily envelop a two-lane highway. ...