The Bureau of Reclamation is now building the
nation’s first boondoggle tourist stop. Thanks to cost overruns and
management neglect, the Hoover Dam visitor center in southern
Nevada will cost $119 million instead of an estimated $32 million.
Scheduled to be finished in 1995, the 44,000-square-foot center,
which sits on the side of a cliff, features a five-story parking
garage and two elevators worth $16 million. Daniel Beard, the new
commissioner of Reclamation who pushed for a formal review of the
project, told the Washington Post, “… it’s a tragedy that we
spent this much money. It destroys the credibility of federal
agencies.” Eventually, construction costs will be passed on to
municipal and rural electric co-ops that buy power from the Hoover
Dam complex. That doesn’t please officials at the Overton Power
District, which will have to raise prices for its 4,000 customers
by roughly 25 percent. Administrative assistant for Overton, Delmar
Leatham, says, “the whole project is absurd. It is Disneyland in
the desert.”
The Bureau of Reclamation is now
building the nation’s first boondoggle tourist stop. Thanks to cost
overruns and management neglect, the Hoover Dam visitor center in
southern Nevada will cost $119 million instead of an estimated $32
million. Scheduled to be finished in 1995, the 44,000-square-foot
center, which sits on the side of a cliff, features a five-story
parking garage and two elevators worth $16 million. Daniel Beard,
the new commissioner of Reclamation who pushed for a formal review
of the project, told the Washington Post, “… it’s a tragedy that
we spent this much money. It destroys the credibility of federal
agencies.” Eventually, construction costs will be passed on to
municipal and rural electric co-ops that buy power from the Hoover
Dam complex. That doesn’t please officials at the Overton Power
District, which will have to raise prices for its 4,000 customers
by roughly 25 percent. Administrative assistant for Overton, Delmar
Leatham, says, “the whole project is absurd. It is Disneyland in
the desert.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Five star visitor complex.
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