A note: This is a history of Lake Kennedy, the world's largest man-made lake. It's written in the vein of the Key West-Havana Tunnel and is complete. I'll be posting one section per day until I run out of sections. Please feel free to comment with questions, concerns, or just to tell me how much I suck.
“Nobody visits Lake Kennedy. To someone reading these words, it might sound absurd that the world’s largest man-made lake is rarely visited by tourists. But ask yourself: How many people you know have visited Great Bear Lake or Great Slave Lake? These Canadian counterparts to Kennedy are approximately the same size and are at the same latitude. They languish in far more obscurity, however, lacking Kennedy’s amusing controversy. Those Americans who do visit Kennedy seem to be attracted more by the boondoggle than the lake itself. ...”
From The World’s Biggest Boondoggle: Lake Kennedy. Random House, 1993.
When people think of Lake Kennedy, they rarely think of Rampart Dam. It’s only natural — most people equate size to importance, regardless of truisms like “bigger isn’t always better.” To make matters worse, Rampart doesn’t have any of the grandeur of Hoover Dam. It doesn’t soar high between cliffs like Hoover, and Rampart’s length makes it appear shorter still. It isn’t a brilliant white like Hoover’s sun-bleached surface. Instead, Rampart’s concrete looks damp and drab, particularly during the cold, cloudy winter months that surround it for six months out of the year.
Rampart’s many critics have scorned its aesthetics as coming from the worst of 1960s and 1970s utilitarianism. More than a few of those same critics have noted that even Chinese engineers, those notable utilitarians, found room to improve on Rampart’s look when they translated it for their own uses at the recently completed Three Gorges Dam project.
But Rampart wasn’t designed to look good. It was designed to generate vast quantities of cheap electricity. And that, even its most rabid critics are forced to admit, it does well. Between May and November, when the Yukon River flows free of ice, Rampart Dam generates 5 gigawatts of electricity for Alaska, the Canadian Yukon, and British Columbia. Even in winter, when ice chokes Lake Kennedy and the Yukon, Rampart still generates 3.5 gigawatts, more than enough to supply demand for an area the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River.
Still, critics ask if it was worth the $8 billion price tag, the loss of a critical wildlife habitat, and the forced eviction of more than 1,500 Alaska Natives. Most Alaskans view the project as worthwhile, as do many in Canada who benefit from the dam’s electricity. It’s unlikely that a true answer ever will be reached or that the controversy that began almost from the moment the dam was conceived will ever be laid to rest.
“Nobody visits Lake Kennedy. To someone reading these words, it might sound absurd that the world’s largest man-made lake is rarely visited by tourists. But ask yourself: How many people you know have visited Great Bear Lake or Great Slave Lake? These Canadian counterparts to Kennedy are approximately the same size and are at the same latitude. They languish in far more obscurity, however, lacking Kennedy’s amusing controversy. Those Americans who do visit Kennedy seem to be attracted more by the boondoggle than the lake itself. ...”
From The World’s Biggest Boondoggle: Lake Kennedy. Random House, 1993.
When people think of Lake Kennedy, they rarely think of Rampart Dam. It’s only natural — most people equate size to importance, regardless of truisms like “bigger isn’t always better.” To make matters worse, Rampart doesn’t have any of the grandeur of Hoover Dam. It doesn’t soar high between cliffs like Hoover, and Rampart’s length makes it appear shorter still. It isn’t a brilliant white like Hoover’s sun-bleached surface. Instead, Rampart’s concrete looks damp and drab, particularly during the cold, cloudy winter months that surround it for six months out of the year.
Rampart’s many critics have scorned its aesthetics as coming from the worst of 1960s and 1970s utilitarianism. More than a few of those same critics have noted that even Chinese engineers, those notable utilitarians, found room to improve on Rampart’s look when they translated it for their own uses at the recently completed Three Gorges Dam project.
But Rampart wasn’t designed to look good. It was designed to generate vast quantities of cheap electricity. And that, even its most rabid critics are forced to admit, it does well. Between May and November, when the Yukon River flows free of ice, Rampart Dam generates 5 gigawatts of electricity for Alaska, the Canadian Yukon, and British Columbia. Even in winter, when ice chokes Lake Kennedy and the Yukon, Rampart still generates 3.5 gigawatts, more than enough to supply demand for an area the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River.
Still, critics ask if it was worth the $8 billion price tag, the loss of a critical wildlife habitat, and the forced eviction of more than 1,500 Alaska Natives. Most Alaskans view the project as worthwhile, as do many in Canada who benefit from the dam’s electricity. It’s unlikely that a true answer ever will be reached or that the controversy that began almost from the moment the dam was conceived will ever be laid to rest.
