UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT of the INTERIOR

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BUREAU OF RECLAMATION Love - Interior 4662

For Release MAY 16, 1963

RECLAMATION AWARDS $15.4 MILLION CON'£RACT FOR AND POWERPLANT IN

Al Johnson_J;onstruction Co. of Minneap~lis.!.. ~nn. ~ and Morrison-Knudsen Co., Inc., of Boise, Idaho, have been awarded a $15,436,066 Bureau of Reclamation contract to build the unusual Morrow Point and Powerplant on the of southwestern Colorado, the Department of the Interior announced today. The dam, part of the Curecanti Unit of the Storage Project, ~till create a waterfall twice as high as Niagara and is expected to attract many

thousands of visitors yearly. Morrow Point Dam will incorporate three "firsts"for the Bureau of Reclamation,

making it a landmark structure in the application of modern concepts and design by the agency. They are: Use of a thin-arch, double curvature design; location of

the powerplant underground in an arched-roof cavern carved in the canyon wall,

rather- -than at-the -toe of -the dam, -the 1;2S-ual site of Bureau powerp-lan-t&-; ane--a free-fall spillway where water will tumble 400 feet to the streambed below.

Most concrete built by the Bureau of Reclamation are of horizontal arch design, with a convex curvature on the upstream face, which causes most of the loads due to water pressure to be carried to the abutments. The Morrow Point Dam will take this design one step farther, with both horizontal and vertical arches upstream, thus providing more strength with less mass and permitting greater stress and distribution throughout the entire structure. The dam will be only 52 feet thick at the base and 12 feet along its 700-foot top. , being built by the Bureau on the Green River in Utah, is only slighter higher than Morrow Point, yet it is 150 feet thick at the base and 27 feet at the top. The powerplant in the rock wall of Gunnison Canyon at Morrow Point will be 231 feet long, 57 feet wide, and have a maximum height of about 130 feet. It will house two 60,000 kw turbine- driven generators. Location of the plant adjacent to the bottom of the dam and JOO feet below the dam ' s crest will permit use of relatively short waterways through the canyon wall from the reservoir to the turbines.

Construction of Morrow Point Dam and Powerplant will create 1,000 man-years of on-site work and 1,600 man-years off- site employment.

The $15.4 million contract for Morrow Point Dam was based on the lowest bid of 14 submitted under Bureau of Reclamation Specification No. :r::x:; - 5915. Next two lowest bids were these of Vinnell Corporation and George A. Fuller of Alhambra, Calif., $15,579,073, and Tecon Corporation and McNamara Corporation, Ltd. , Dallas, ---'fex., $16,837,5

Blue Mesa Dam, being built 12 miles upstream on the Gunnison, and Morrow Point Dam will develop 760 feet of the 1,000 feet of potential power head along a 40-mile reach of a deep canyon section of the river below the town of Gunnison and above the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. and Powerplant, first features of the Curecanti Unit, are scheduled for completion in late 1966, while the Morrow Point unit should be finished by September 1967. x x x

P.N. 28588-63 2