In Colossus, Michael Hiltzik makes nice use of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s dedication address 75 years ago atop Hoover Dam. Inspired, I went back and found a copy of the text to pull a quote for a newspaper column. Roosevelt said this:

We are here to celebrate the completion of the greatest dam in the world, rising 726 feet above the bed-rock of the river and altering the geography of a whole region; we are here to see the creation of the largest artificial lake in the world – 115 miles long, holding enough water, for example, to cover the State of Connecticut to a depth of ten feet.

I did some quick math. Looks like enough water in Lake Mead to cover Connecticut to about 3 feet right now. The good news, I guess, is that no one will drown if we go ahead and do it.

update: It occurs on reflection that extremely short people (small children, perhaps) as well as those lying down might still have difficulty, so perhaps we should wait for Mead to drop a bit more before trying the Connecticut experiment.