excerpts from the Superior California News Section of the Sacramento Bee
McClatchy Newspapers Service by William G. Wilson
Monday, October 18, 1965
"Hell Hole Dam Builders Race Sierra Winter for Deadline"
A wide-open race is being run by a battalion of construction workers against the Sierra weather in building the high earth core and rock fill Hell Hole Dam in eastern Placer County.
Crews dumping fill rock at a phenomenal pace are trying to edge out the coming of rain and snow and freezing weather to prepare the 420 foot-high structure to impound runoff at the mile-high elevation.
It has been a frustrating job for the contractor, who is fighting to complete the huge dam by the Nov. 15 deadline. Although it is behind schedule, the contractor indicated bridging the Rubicon River Canyon will be complete enough to store water this winter on approval by the State Division of Dam Safety.
The dam is 80 per cent complete, and crews are working two 10 hour shifts a day to place impervious material and pile the granite rock high across the canyon.
A structural cross-section of the dam shows a clay material is being compacted and sealed to make the dam leak-proof, and millions of cubic yards of rock are being shaped around the core.
. . .When the first big push was made to build the dam early last year, the contractor, found there was a traffic jam in moving the fill material from the reservoir area to the job site and it took some time to get the project rolling.
As the structure rose slowly late last year and workers had placed about 2 million cubic yards of rock, storms flooded the reservoir area and when the diversion tunnel became over-loaded, 700,000 cubic yards of rock washed down the canyon and left a gaping hole in the dam.
The job to rebuild it began as weather permitted and engineering checks were made with the task of having to complete the structure in one working year rather than the scheduled two.
Then, when the long days of summer provided what was expected to be the best working conditions, the weather moved in to harass the workers. Because the impervious clay needs to have almost complete compaction to seal the dam, it needs to be relatively free of moisture. Throughout the summer and to the present, rain squalls have blown into the canyon regularly to hold up placing the material. Huge sheets of plastic were moved over the material when the thundershowers hit and were removed quickly when the sun shone.
Even as the 600 workers drove forward, they were not to escape major tragedy. As they carved away at the spillway, a set dynamite charge was exploded by lightning three workers were killed. The project was shut down for a week to investigate the accident.
. . .The stakes are high however, with the loss of equipment by the contractor alone estimated to be in excess of one million.
. . .the problems have been immense. One representative of the contractor summed up the job by saying "The name has us pegged. . .Hell Hole has sort of damned us"