BUILDING THE ULTIMATE DAM

From CHAPTER FOUR (pp. 59-84):

Rather than concentrating the water power [of the San Joaquin River] into a single generating facility, Eastwood now envisaged a series of power plants operating under a cumulative head of almost 6,000 feet. Water from the upper San Joaquin ultimately would be diverted through a tunnel drilled under Kaiser Ridge (known today as Ward Tunnel) and stored in a reservoir built at the headwaters of Big Creek.


This artificial lake would be formed by three dams positioned to close topographical "gaps" at the periphery of a natural depression called the Big Creek Basin; the reservoir would hold more than 100,000 acre-feet of water at an elevation 6,900 feet above sea level.... This scheme promised to develop at least [360,000 horsepower].


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Because the proposed Big Creek project required a heavily capitalized water storage, power generation, and electrical distribution system, Eastwood was again forced to seek extensive financial support from outside investors. And in searching for a wealthy patron to underwrite development of Big Creek, he became involved in the business empire of Henry E. Huntington.


By 1905, all work associated with [the Pacific Light & Power Corporation's] Big Creek's water rights, location surveys, and the like had been completed. Eastwood then began designing the system's engineering facilities, including the main storage reservoir...as planning for Big Creek began to culminate, this citically important (and expensive) technology became a central concern.... The Eastwood Papers at Berkeley include a 19-page, handwritten commentary simply entitled "Dams" that documents some of Eastwood's earliest thoughts on why multiple arch dams were the best choice for Big Creek.


To highlight the positive structural attributes of his new multiple arch "buttress type" design, Eastwood emphasized the value of the inclined upstream face in resisting "sliding and overturning" and in allowing "the weight of the water to put all parts of the dam in compression." He also considered the "arch as the form to use" for the upstream face, "as by its use the materials used are all put in direct compression, and hence the highest service is obtained."


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As became apparent in the resistance that Eastwood encountered in promoting a new dam type within the PL&P, efforts by western engineers to take the lead in implementing new technologies sometimes trespassed on the interests of engineers based outside the region; and such trespasses assumed greater significance because of the evolving capitalistic economic order that supported financing for America's large-scale electric power systems.

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