Minidoka Dam
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The Minidoka Dam is an earthfill dam on the Snake River near Rupert, Idaho, on County Highway 400, north of Acequia, Idaho. It is 86 feet (26 m) high and nearly a mile (1.6 km) long.
In 1974 the dam and power plant were listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Walcott Park, close to the dam, is a popular summertime picnic area. Headquarters for the Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge are also adjacent to the dam.
[edit] History
The Minidoka dam was the first Reclamation Service project in Idaho. Construction began on the Dam in 1904. By 1906 most of the dam's canals and laterals were finished. By 1909, Minidoka Dam's power plant, the first federal power plant in the northwest, was completed.
By its completion, the total cost of the dam was $5.8 million, which exceeded estimates. The Minidoka dam was the first of five dams built in the Minidoka project, a project proposed to bring water into the southeastern areas of Idaho near the cities of Rupert and Burley, Idaho. The project was successful, as what was once an uninhabited sagebrush desert is now bountiful farmland.
[edit] Statistics
- Provides supplemental water supply to more than 1 million acres (4000 km²) of land.
- The reservoir has a storage capacity of 210,000 acre-feet (260,000,000 m³).
- The reservoir, Lake Walcott, is named after a reclamation engineer.
- The reservoir extends 26 miles (42 km) up the Snake River and has a shoreline of 80 miles (130 km).
- The concrete power plant has nine generating units with a total capacity of 27.7 MW
