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Understanding 9/11tv Shasta Dam CSPAN May 6, 2017 12:45pm-1:01pm EDT
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war footing even when you are at peace. that is kind of the misconception i think i see that i am trying to push back against. >> thank you for speaking with us. ms. epstein: thank you. i appreciate it. >> you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation goes on on facebook.ike us we are in redding, california . come with us as we learn more about the shasta dam and its history. tall, two02 feet
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thirds of a mile in length. it is actually thicker than it is tall. from here when we look up at it, we see just how massive shasta dam is. it weighs 16 million tons. today we are standing at shasta dam, the second largest dam and the entire united states. it was built back in 1948 and forever changed the state of california. the central valley runs right here all the way down 450 miles to bakersfield. valley, because historically we have had some wet years and a dry years, and aboutse wet years we get 75% of the state's precipitation
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. all of that rainfall and snow melt would wash down into the valley and cause flooding. so, the natives would live by the river and then go to higher ground during flood season. as the water receded, it deposited rich soil. decade after decade of this, you got a really thick layer of good soil. and therefore, you have a big soil, with wonderful wonderful climate, and long growing year. ae missing part of that was reliable water source. that is where shasta dam comes in. smallerupplemented by south along down the rivers. california into and agricultural mega-place.
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this is actually what comes from treasury.l we are funded by the federal government. the way this works is we produce power. we sell water contracts and have obligations to them. we also have obligations for power that we try to meet as well. as those things are sold, that money goes back to the treasury, and then we go back to the treasury and say we need this much money to operate shasta dam. we generate more money than we need to operate shasta. they are looking for a big basin, something that would be able to hold a lot of water, so a natural valley is important. we are situated here at shasta where we get about 75% of the
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state's precipitation right to the north of us. by building the dam here we are also providing flood control to the city of redding. you want to look for an area where the water is, the natural basin. here are ways three sites that would be good sites for a dam. this was chosen for its proximity north of reading -- north of redding. this is the lobby north of the power plant. public. open to the you may drive down, come in here and use this as a central place to start visiting shasta dam. after 9/11 it was closed down. theere not able to bring public into this area. back in 2008 we were able to open back up again to the public
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. when we redid this room we maintain the vermont marble. the furniture you see is early 1950's lobby furniture, and we kept it just because it is kind of cool to bring you back to the day when the dam was first operational to the public. one of the things we like to do in this room is explained and talk about the construction of shasta dam. it was built in 1938 to 1945. it was a depression-era project, part of roosevelt's new deal. towe brought people out here build the dam, there were going to be 4300 jobs. a lot of people came out here desperately needing a job.
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halfway through construction, we got involved in what became world war ii. a depression of economy to a wartime economy, and everything took a flip. it was about building a water storage facility. during the war, it became a -- about power. anything that was going to produce a significant amount of power was needed. this was actually part of the war effort. it was given top priority. the people who work to her word to afford -- the people who work here were deferred for draft. when i came here to start building, one of the big things they had to deal with was the railroad. the southern pacific railroad ran right through the power plant and continued on. so, job one was to move the
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train. they built a tunnel that was 1800 feet long. they started at both ends and worked toward the middle. there was no gps, you have two different elevations, and they are building a tunnel like this, and they met at a place about the size of a dinner plate. the engineering on that was amazing, but more importantly, that allowed the train to be de-toward around the jobsite -- etoured -toward around the site. imagine being a passenger on that train, you would be driving
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through one of the biggest construction sites at the time. right before they were ready to start building the dam, they had a 1940 flood. the blood of 1940, downtown redding was completely underwater. back then, it was a wild river that turned into a giant lake. you can imagine all that flooding did cause problems here at the jobsite. of 1940, two july, they got that all cleaned up and were ready to start building the dam it self. brought gravel in on a conveyor belt that had to be built of course. all of that material was brought with cement and water
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mixed together, and that concrete was delivered in eight yard rockets. buckets.yard they delivered concrete to a series of a blocks at any given time. gentleman like the joe chestnut here would pick up a big compactor and pack that concrete down, make sure there were no air bubbles. you can see it is not very fluid, so if you end up with a big air pocket and there, that will collapse in on it self. imagine what it would be like doing that all day long. they were paid big bucks, $.90 that in the do summer sun, didn't matter. years.dn't stop for 4.5
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as they build up the sides of the dam, they were getting ready to go ahead and start this section. by this point, they had built a new permanent home for the train, and they used the title they had built to move the water through. once they got to about right in here, they placed the four lower valves that we saw. -- those valves let the river take its natural path. the guy in charge of the felt like the most prudent thing to do was to start telling the lake as they were building. thatey were building up
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spillway, the water was chasing them, as they did that, they were able to store enough water to generate power for the first time, which was a year before the dam was actually completed. as of this generator is spinning, it is producing 142 megawatts. as needed to deliver the water, as the water delivery comes in and we are told we need to release water, they will average that out through a 24 hour period, deliver that water, so they will release of the water through the hot afternoon, for example. so, power comes as a byproduct, but they do try to -- it.
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over here we have a fully functioning machine shop. all original equipment used to fix the pieces and parts of the generators. if you think about it, you are not going to go to a local store or home depot if the generator needs a repair or replace. they can manufacture or cool the different pieces here for repair if they need to. this is a giant lathe, so they can turn a giant shaft if they need to. as things need to be repaired, they can take care of most of --t right here in the m machine shop. when the dam was built there were 9 million people living in california. million.are pushing 40 when you add global warming to
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that, possibly heavier storms comes back to flood control, we also have to deal with less water in some places, and we still have all of these people that need water to live. all of that is going to make facilities like this even more important. power city's staff recently traveled to redding, california. learn more about writing and c-span.org/cities tour. tonight at 8:00 on lectures in history, messiah college professor on the people and ideas that shaped the 1776 pennsylvania constitution. the continental congress, the
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representatives from the colonies, have instructed after -- july 4 declaration instructed all of the colonies, now states, to form new government's. eastern, at 4:30 p.m. protection of ronald reagan after the assassination attempt. >> when i heard the shots, i immediately went to my weapon. i recognized the shots had gone off. i only had seconds to determine where they had come from. and that's on use of smoke from the weapons, you solve individuals moving toward the potential assailant. >> and at 8:00, on the presidency, the relationship between thomas jefferson and the enslaved hemings family. >> people as property that could be bought and sold despite
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whatever privilege sally and her children might have had, they all lived with the specter of the possibility that, that could happen for our complete american history schedule, go to c-span.org. museum of the american revolution, just blocks away from independence hall and the liberty bell in philadelphia, opened to the public on april 19. next the opening ceremony. , speakers include former vice president joe biden, pulitzer prize-winning historian david mccullough, and journalist cokie roberts. this is about an hour and 40 minutes. ♪
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