Water Power Development on the Loup River in Nebraska; A Study in Economic Geography

the formation of the Russian-American Company. 4.Distance from Russia—6000 miles from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka —made it impossible for the Company to compete with foreign traders more centrally located and possessing the bases for a significant triangular trade. 5.In an effort to become more self-sufficient and less dependent upon Siberian distances, Ross Colony was founded in California. The California colony was only partially successful because of poor agricultural location and a lack of agricultural heritage on the part of the Russian colonists. 6. Finally, the Russian American Empire fell with the decline of the nionocultural economy—the sea-otter —that supported it. Russia tried to exploit Alaska as an investment rather than as a colony . The entire structure was based on furs, with great profits and small capital invested. No evidence of real stability is to be found in the Russian colonial policy. A transplanted culture of nomadism and ruthless exploitation succeeded only as long the furs lasted. Almost no effort was made to intelligently adjust to the permanent environmental resources of the country . Water Power Development on the Loup River in Nebraska; A Study in Economic Geography RALPH E. OLSON TJniverslty of Nehraska, Lincoln The state of Nebraska has no Grand Canyon in which to place a dam 700 feet high. It has no precipitous valley walls to form a natural reservoir holding 30 million acre feet of water. It bas no Grand Coulee with a sharp declivity of 400 feet over which its rivers can be diverted. In brief, it is not conspicuously adapted for hydroelectric development. And yet, Nebraska is not destined to be forever a blank spot on the water power map of the country. The three projects under construction by the Public Works Administration in our state—the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District project near Hastings, the Platte Valley Public Power and Irrigation District project near Kearney , and the Loup River Public Power District project near Columbus— are expected to make the state practically self-sufficient in electrical power. It is the third of these projects that I am describing. The streams which flow eastward across the gently-dipping sedimentary strata in Nebraska have not cut deeply into their soft beds. Instead, they lïave preferred to erode mostly in a lateral direction, forming valleys commonly several miles wide and only 100 to 300 or 400 feet below the adjacent uplands. Broad alluvial terraces frequently extend for many miles along the valleys, little dissected by the minor drainage streams which cross them in reaching the rivers. These terraces, especially in the western and central parts of the state, have long been used for irrigation farming . A new use has been found for them in the last five years. They are fundamental in the development of hydroelectric power along the lowgradient streams. The Loup River Public Power District project was made possible by a number of PWA loans and grants totalling about $12,000,000. Actual work on the project was begun in the autumn of 1934 and completion is expected by December, 1937. Physically, the project involves the diversion of water from the north side of the Loup River, at a point about six miles touthwest of Genoa, into a low-gradient earth canal 35 miles long. (Fig. 1.) The canal is designed over most of its length to carry 3,000 (23) second feet of water, or somewhat more than the average flow of the river. This canal carries the water across the flood plain and onto the terrace, from where it is dropped twice to turn turbines before it is finally led back into the Platte river, three miles southwest of Columbus, just below the confluence of that river with the Loup. The first of the two power houses, located one mile northwest of the little village of Monroe, utilizes a head of 32 feet to develop 9,600 horsepower through three hydroelectric units. The second and larger power house, built on the south edge of a high terrace, about two miles northeast of Columbus, uses a head of 112 feet to generate 54,000 horsepower in three turbine units each of 18,000 horsepower capacity...