Owyhee Dam A project of the Bureau of Reclamation, they hired General Construction Company from Seattle to build the dam. Former Oregonian and then United States President Herbert Hoover dedicated what was the highest dam of its type in the world on July 17, 1932. Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur delivered Hoover's message at the dam. Owyhee's construction served as a prototype for the larger Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, including the use of refrigeration to cool the concrete. The dam cost $6,000,000, with the total reclamation project costing $18,000,000. Owyhee was designed by Frank A. Banks, who also
Portugués Dam is filled and the dam tested, it is expected to be operational in early 2015. The Portugués Dam is a high and long single-centered roller-compacted concrete thick arch. Containing of roller-compacted concrete, it is thick at its base and thick at its crest. The dam has an uncontrolled spillway center-left side, over the river bed; below the dams crest of above sea level. The center of the dam straddles an intake and outlet structure which will draw water from behind the dam and discharge it into the river valley. During excavation, a Pre-Columbian era ceremonial plaza ("batey" or ball court)