Hungry Horse Dam

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 spillway is controlled by a The surface elevation of the reservoir is above sea level. The dam is managed to provide beneficial flow conditions and to provide safe passage for migrating juvenile fish to reach the Columbia River Estuary and the Pacific Ocean. ==History==

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 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. 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 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. ==Tributaries==

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

The U.S. intelligence, during the Cold War, uncovered a KGB and East German Stasi plan to sabotage major American infrastructures, including the Hungry Horse Dam. According to reports the plan was to damage the power grid and water management system by sabotaging the dam’s turbines or spillways. This would cause a flooding event and economic disruption. The plan was never carried out, but declassified documents and defectors’ testimonies like Vasili Mitrokhin show that the Soviet Union and East Germany had such a list of American targets. ==See also==