Oahe Dam

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Lake Oahe (Reservoir), near Linton, North Dakota, as seen from space, October 1985

The Oahe Dam is a major man-made dam along the Missouri River, just north of Pierre, South Dakota. It creates Lake Oahe, the 4th largest man-made reservoir in the United States, which stretches 231 miles (372 km) up the course of the Missouri to Bismarck, North Dakota.

Oahe Dam was authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, and construction by the United States Army Corps of Engineers began in 1948. It is named for the Oahe Indian Mission established among the Lakota Sioux in 1874. The dam, 245 feet (75 m) in height, began generating power in 1962, and was officially dedicated by President John F. Kennedy on August 17, 1962.

The hydroelectric power plant provides electricity to the states of Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana and North and South Dakota. In addition to power generation, the dam and lake also serve flood control, irrigation, water supply, and recreational purposes. The reservoir has a storage capacity of 23.5 million acre-feet (29 km³). The Cannonball, Grand, Moreau, and Cheyenne Rivers all flow into Lake Oahe from the west.

[edit] External links

• Dams affecting the Missouri River
• Oahe Dam and Lake Oahe, A Sightseer's Guide to Engineering page

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The Oahe Dam destroyed more Indian land than any other public works project in America. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux lost a total of 160,889 acres...including their most valuable rangeland, most of their gardens and cultivated farm tracts, and nearly all of their timber, wild fruit, and wildlife resources. The inundation of more than 105,000 acres of choice grazing land affected 75% of the ranchers on the Cheyenne River Reservation....Ninety percent of the timbered areas on both reservations were destroyed

The loss of the bottomland grazing areas seriously crippled the Indian livestock industry. Ranching had become the primary economic activity on all of the reservations except the Yankton....The progress made by the Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, and lower Brule Sioux in establishing tribal cattle enterprises was greatly negated by the reservoir projects. A substantial portion of the Indian ranchers were forced either to liquidate their assets altogether or to establish smaller operations on the inferior reservation land that remained. (Lawson, p.50, 57)

source-Lawson, Michael L. Dammed Indians : the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. ISBN 0-8061-2672-8 (pbk.

People never heard about Oahe dam until three years after its passage!...."the dams would deprive them of another huge portion of what precious little tribal land they had left, but also that the lands to be inundated---the Missouri river botton lands---were by far the finest in Sioux country. Those lands were vital to new cattle-raising programs on Standing Rock and Cheyenne River[italics mine]....The fertile soil, practically the only fertile soil the Sioux still owned, yielded almost 90 percent of the timber for the affected reservations, as well as thousands of quarts of currants, grapes, and wild chokecherries every year....In human terms, the disruption of life would be catastrophic....Years later, a visitor to Cheyenne River wondered why there were so few elders on the reservation. Residents explained that 'the old people had died of heartache' after losing their homes. (Lazarus, p. 190)

source- Lazarus, Edward. Black Hills, White Justice : The Sioux Nation Versus the United States, 1775 to the Present. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. ISBN 0-06-016557-X (cloth),

sites: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-2051.ZO.html