Paradise Dam (Montana)
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| Paradise Dam | |
|---|---|
 Paradise Dam as proposed | |
  Location of Paradise Dam in Montana | |
| Location | Sanders County, near Paradise, Montana, USA |
| Coordinates | 47°24′57″N 114°50′00″W / 47.41583°N 114.83333°W |
| Status | Cancelled |
| Operator(s) | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Impounds | Clark Fork River and Flathead River |
| Height | 250 ft (76 m) |
| Length | 3,750 ft (1,140 m) |
| Spillway type | Gated spillway |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Paradise Reservoir |
| Total capacity | 4,080,000 acre-feet (5.03 km3) |
| Surface area | 103 square miles (270 km2) |
| Power Station | |
| Turbines | 8 x 72 MW turbines, 6 additional to be installed later |
| Installed capacity | 576 MW initially 1000 MW in a later phase |
Paradise Dam was a proposed dam on the Clark Fork River in Montana. It was proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an alternative to the construction of Glacier View Dam on the western boundary of Glacier National Park, to capture the flow of the Flathead River. The earth embankment dam was planned to be about 250 feet (76 m) high, impounding a reservoir of 4,080,000 acre-feet (5.03 km3). While it was viewed as a desirable power generation and water storage project by the Corps of Engineers, it was opposed by those it would displace from towns and productive agricultural lands, and was never built.
The dam was proposed in the 1940s as an alternative to the controversial Glacier View Dam, which was strenuously opposed by the National Park Service and conservation organizations as an intrusion into national park lands. It would have inundated 9,000 acres (3,600 ha) of already-irrigated and farmed lands, with the reservoir extending 49 miles (79 km) up the Clark Fork and 72 miles (116 km) up the Flathead to the base of SKQ Dam. The project required the relocation of roads, rail lines and houses and businesses in several communities. The cost in 1950 was estimated at $265,569,000.[1]
Alternative sites at The Plains, five miles downstream from Plains, Montana, and the Weeks site, three miles downstream from the Plains site, were examined but rejected on grounds of poor foundation conditions. Three other sites, Knowles (river mile 4), Perma (river mile 11) and Oxbow (river mile 41) were rejected on similar grounds.[2]
