Dam Crazy for White Coal in the New South - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 27

and the powerhouse's foundations. This limestone was apparently “soluble in the river wa-
ter,” according to one technical writer, and “had a geological exploration been made, this
condition would” have likely resulted in the project's termination. But the project contin-
ued as engineers and laborers drilled hundreds of vertical holes up to fifty feet deep before
pumping cement grout under pressure into the holes to fill horizontal and lateral fissures.
Workers used more than 200,000 bags of cement to manufacture “solid rock” for the dam's
foundation. This solution worked in the short term, but in 1914 four “boils” emerged be-
low the dam, indicating that water continued to enter limestone crevices in the riverbed
above the dam, flow through limestone channels under the dam's foundation, and reem-
erge from the riverbed immediately downstream. 28 Engineers fixed isolated spots, but new
boils continued to emerge on the dam's downstream side. Between 1919 and 1921, engin-
eers injected asphalt-grout under the dam's foundation to depths of 130 feet. This meth-
od—apparently used elsewhere only once before—stopped the major leakage and reduced
the overall number of boils, but it still could not seal all of the leaks. Seepage represented
not only lost storage and potential energy. The leaking foundation also signaled that private
industry was not entirely capable of financing and engineering multiple-purpose projects
of this magnitude.
This limited public-private venture into multiple-purpose planning and water conserva-
tion in the Tennessee River valley did not bode well for future collaborations, since the
initial projected cost of $3 million mushroomed to an actual cost of $11 million. “At the
time of construction, Hales Bar was a great precedent setting project,” noted TVA engin-
eers in 1941. Excepting some western dams and the Niagara Falls project, Hales Bar was
the “largest single hydroelectric development in the South” when the complex was com-
pleted in 1914. 29 But the engineering failures, from site selection to water storage prob-
lems, did not inspire future confidence in public-private conservation or power-sharing
schemes. Furthermore, private corporations and their investors discovered the range of fin-
ancial and environmental dangers inherent in building massive dams, navigational locks,
powerhouses, and reservoirs. This realization kept some companies on the sidelines and
provided ammunition for Progressives who were critical of the private energy sector's
monopolistic tendencies.
This was serious business: Tennessee hydraulic engineer J. A. Switzer understood in
1912 that it did “not require the prophetic vision of a dreamer to suppose that the day will
come when practically the entire length of such rivers as the Tennessee will be linked to
water wheels, and so be forced to contribute their maximum to the country's supply of
power.” Switzer continued: “Nor is it visionary to say that the next great step will then be
the building of enormous reservoirs at the headwaters of the rivers to impound the flood
waters now going to waste, and by means of them doubling or trebling the power suscept-
ible to utilization at all such sites as Hale's Bar. Just as certainly as that the Government