Concrete facts about dams.

• Author: Brown, Dan (American writer)
• Position: From Readers - Brief Article - Letter to the Editor

"Hubris on the Yangtze" [Matters of Scale, November/December 2003] pointed out an environmental disaster in the making. However, I do think you were a little misleading in comparing the amount of concrete used in the building of the Three Gorges Dam with that used in building the Panama Canal. Instcad, you might well have compared the building of Three Rivers with that environmental disaster of our [Americans'] own--the building of Hoover Dam. Hoover is taller (727 feet). And we used 4,360,000 cubic yards of concrete in the construction of our monument to the desecration of the environment. Our...