"GAO Says New Melones Can't Pay Its Own Costs" article

(top article by John Fogarty; “Within 8 Feet of Dam Brim”, (bottom article by Lois Nielson); from the Stanislaus Notebooks, a collection by Martin Blake, two articles, the top one showing how New Melones Dam would not pay its cost; and the bottom article describing how the flooded Stanislaus Canyon had almost reached the New Melones Dam spillway. The waters just reached the top of the spillway when the rains of that year stopped. In addition, this failure to pay back its cost was a lesson that has kept other massive dams from being built in the U.S.