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A small explosion and fire have been reported at the Hoover Dam in Nevada, local officials and witnesses say. The exact circumstances were not immediately known. The incident happened just after 10 a.m. on Tuesday when visitors at the dam reported seeing an explosion, fire and a large plume of smoke at the base of the dam. The cause and the circumstances of the explosion were not immediately known. However, there is currently no indication of a threat to the dam’s structure. “Boulder City Fire Department is en route to an emergency call at Hoover Dam,” the City of Boulder...

Lake Mead is a reservoir is Nevada and Arizona, relied upon for example by the city of Las Vegas for drinking water. Last year, its water level was significantly lower than previous years. This year, it’s even lower. This is dramatic… If the trend does continue for the next two decades as it has been going on for the past two, it seems like things aren’t looking optimal for the Colorado river, the largest water reservoir by capacty in the US, and the Hoover Dam hydroelectric power plant. Lake Mead fell about 7 feet in May. I expect June will...

Hoover Dam helped transform the American West, harnessing the force of the Colorado River — along with millions of cubic feet of concrete and tens of millions of pounds of steel — to power millions of homes and businesses. It was one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century. Now it is the focus of a distinctly 21st-century challenge: turning the dam into a vast reservoir of excess electricity, fed by the solar farms and wind turbines that represent the power sources of the future.

A man was taken into custody Friday after he barricaded himself inside a “homemade” armored vehicle near the Hoover Dam on U.S. Highway 93, investigators said. Officials received calls around 11:54 a.m. local time about a white man who had stopped on the highway near the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, which heads into Arizona, Jason Buratczuk from the Nevada Highway Patrol said at a news conference. Officials said the unidentified man was holed up in what looked to be a “homemade” armored vehicle and he appeared to have some kind of “long gun rifle” and signage. Authorities stopped traffic...

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — According to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, units are responding to report of a person with a gun at Hoover Damn on the bridge.

Link only per agreement with Gannett

In a move that’s prompting questions about the stockpiling of weapons by the federal government’s nonmilitary agencies, the Bureau of Reclamation wants to buy 52,000 rounds of ammunition for use in law enforcement at Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. After learning about the purchase request, Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei vowed to inquire with the bureau about its operations, number of officers carrying firearms and how much ammunition it uses, according Brian Baluta, a spokesman for Amodei.

This might be some background reading on this: FoxNews: California expected to set mandatory water curbs for first time Over one hundred years ago, folks in California were planning their future by planning on aquaducts. Occasionally, Louisiana has too much water (flooding) and Texas too little. The key number in all of this is that Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas is at about 400-500 feet above sea level. That means an aquaduct system could be built such there could be four to five stations that raise the water 100 feet or more. Louisiana has a number of river systems (besides the Mississippi...

President Obama hasn't exactly been all-in on debate prep, as his team has pointed out. On Sunday, during the flight to Nevada for three days of prep, he chose to watch football rather than cram. On Monday, he took time out to visit volunteers in a field office. On Tuesday, he decided to visit the Hoover Dam. He departed the Lake Las Vegas hotel where he was supposed to be holed up prepping at roughly 3:45 Eastern time and arrived at the dam about 30 minutes later, according to a pool report.

Is Obama’s federal government getting ready to put a huge red X mark on the Hoover Dam, which supplies most of the American West with its life-sustaining water? Having this scenario play out is quite plausible as Barack Obama’s Executive Order # 13547 in support of the global Law of the Sea Treaty (L.O.S.T.) seeks to take control of our water in any form of precipitation, from sky to ocean! Total water control will give the American president and his global cohorts total control of all U.S. citizens if this initiative is not stopped by still-free citizens. Because the Water...

Who is buried in the Hoover Dam? The Hoover Dam is one of the most phenomenal structures in modern history. This 1244 feet long, 660 feet thick, and 726 feet high concrete behemoth holds back so much water that it deformed the earth's crust and caused 600 small earthquakes in the decade after its construction. Over 100 workers died constructing the Hoover Dam — and legend has it, some of them are buried within its concrete facade. Is there anything to these rumors? An enormous number of deaths - Over 100 people died in the construction of the Hoover Dam....

Hoover Dam has become something of a liberal icon these days. President Obama points to it as an example of the sort of federally funded projects that once “unleashed all the potential in this country” — potential that his next round of stimulus will unleash again. MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow has pointed to the 726-foot-high, 660-foot-wide dam as proof that some projects are just too big for private enterprise. “You can’t be the guy that built this,” she tells the TV screen. Only government can, is the implication. Well, that would come as a surprise to the guy who did...

The House passed a bill to extend the allocation of electricity created by the Hoover Dam for another 50 years Monday afternoon without any objection, and well in advance of the deadline to divvy up the output from the regional power center.The deal under which Nevada, California and Arizona share power produced at Hoover Dam is set to expire in 2017; Monday’s bill would preserve it until 2067.It would also create a new category of power recipient: under the new contract, the participating states would agree to take 5 percent of their allocations -- for a total pool of about...

A soaring bridge that will let drivers bypass Hoover Dam — and steer clear of its security checkpoints and gawking tourists — is set to open after nearly eight years and $240 million worth of work. The 1,900-foot engineering wonder perched 890 feet above the Colorado River is expected to drastically cut travel time along the main route between Las Vegas and Phoenix, as motorists will no longer have to make their way across the dam's winding two-lane road at a snail's pace. "I know that the Hoover Dam is one of the wonders of the world," U.S. Transportation Secretary...

Less than a mile downstream from one of the nation's best-known engineering marvels, the Hoover Dam, a second is taking shape. A soaring 1,900-foot span across the gorge created by the Colorado River on the Arizona-Nevada border should be completed this fall, eliminating much of a sometimes hourlong bottleneck as traffic creeps over the dam on the key route between Phoenix and Las Vegas. When it is scheduled to open in November, motorists will cross the longest bridge of its kind in the western hemisphere, with towering concrete columns that rise above a twin rib arch beneath them. "It's pretty...

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam 04th July 2009 Creeping closer inch by inch – 900ft above the mighty Colorado River – the two sides of a £160million bridge at the Hoover Dam in America slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself. When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona. In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be...

Lake Meade IIPosted February 17, 2008 by Categories: Water Desalination Research and Development Last April the New York Times ran an article on the western drought. However, here’s the first official study I’ve seen of the effects of rising demand and falling supply on Lake Meade. Its put out by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Perhaps reports like this were why Patricia Mulroy, General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority communicated the urgent need for action over the next 10 years at the MSSC in January. Across the net you could find people who would dispute...

HOOVER DAM, Nev. - Water officials from California, Arizona and Nevada joined the federal government Monday in enacting a 50-year plan to protect the lower Colorado River and ensure states are able to get enough water and power from it. The $626 million agreement will benefit "the many important species, including humans, that rely on the Colorado River," said John Keys, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, during a ceremony at the base of the massive Hoover Dam. The program, called the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, aims to protect threatened and endangered species along 400 miles of river...

Gary Bettman makes it official: 2004-05 NHL season has been cancelled. Damn you.

Bypass could end traffic over dam for good $234 million project set for '07 completion By Launce Rake <lrake@lasvegassun.com>LAS VEGAS SUNThe managers of Hoover Dam are considering closing the top of the dam to all motor vehicles once the alternate route over the Colorado River is completed. The 3.5-mile, $234 million Hoover Dam bypass, which includes a river-spanning bridge, is scheduled for completion in mid-2007. In the planning, design and environmental-review documents, the plan has always been to open the new bridge to all traffic, especially the heavy commercial trucking that once took a toll on the dam road. Bob...