Decades after a New Deal boom, stimulus spending flows slowly at the Bonneville Dam.
The construction of the Bonneville Dam created 17,000 jobs and sparked the Northwest economy when it was ordered by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Today, stimulus spending provided to expand the dam is off to a slower start.
The Bonneville Power Administration received billions to expand its wind power grid. But only one of the envisioned transmission lines is underway, forecast to produce 700 jobs, and the others are years away from breaking ground.
In the end, the number of jobs created won’t come close to matching the army of impoverished loggers who signed on to mix concrete and install Bonneville’s massive turbines during the depths of the Depression.
Read the full story at The Boston Globe.
