The Rampart Dam was a hydroelectric power proposal in the 1950s and 1960s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dam the Yukon River in Alaska, United States. The project was planned for Rampart Canyon, about 105 miles (169 km) west-northwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. The resulting dam would have created a lake roughly the size of Lake Erie, making it the largest man-made reservoir in the world. The plan for the dam itself called for a concrete structure 530 feet (162 m) high with a top length of about 4,700 feet (1,430 m). Though supported by many politicians and businesses in Alaska, the project was canceled when concerns arose about the project's cost. Native Alaskans in the area protested the threatened loss of nine villages that would be flooded by the dam. Conservation groups abhorred the threatened flooding of the Yukon Flats, a large area of wetlands that provides a critical breeding ground for millions of waterfowl. Fiscal conservatives opposed the dam on the grounds of its large cost and limited benefit to Americans outside Alaska. Because of these objections, United States Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall formally opposed construction of the dam in 1967, and the project was shelved.
Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_Dam> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1656: Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth near Warsaw. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_%281656%29> 1927: Five-year-old Michael I became King of Romania upon the death of his grandfather Ferdinand I. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_I_of_Romania> 1944: Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_20_Plot> 1951: Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian from the Husseini clan while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan> 1969: The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon six-and-a-half hours later. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: cavil (v): To criticise for petty or frivolous reasons <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cavil> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure. --Petrarch <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Petrarch> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
