{"id":529836,"date":"2016-08-03T13:08:53","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T13:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/?p=529836"},"modified":"2025-01-02T09:22:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T09:22:46","slug":"a-blue-tongue-in-the-alps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/reportage\/a-blue-tongue-in-the-alps.html","title":{"rendered":"Lake Lei: history of the reservoir born from a dam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ermanno Olmi, the famous Italian director, was\nstill young when he made \u201cUn metro lungo cinque\u201d (roughly translated from the\nItalian as \u201cOne Metre Is As Long As Five\u201d), the documentary film about the\nconstruction of the dam in Val di Lei<\/strong>, or the Valley of Lei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What drew the director\u2019s gaze and curiosity was the uniqueness of this public work, built in the 1950s by Girola and Lodigiani<\/strong> (two companies that were predecessors of the Salini Impregilo Group). It rises out of a natural habitat that is difficult, where the mountains had first made it unreachable by any vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Val di Lei\u2019s dam: the construction works<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before construction of the dam<\/strong> began, the\nvalley was accessible only by foot. So two cable cars were erected to\nfacilitate the establishment of a work site. One was used to bring people, the\nother materials. On the north side, a road and access tunnel were built. A\nvillage was set up to host 1,500 workers. When everything was ready, work began\nin 1957. Four years or 1.08 million working days were needed to complete the\nproject. The reservoir was filled by 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result turned out to be a masterpiece\nof engineering<\/strong> given the difficulties that were overcome to achieve\nit. The reservoir came to hold 197 million cubic metres of water. The arch dam,\nfifth biggest in Switzerland in terms of reservoir, is 141 metres high with a\ncrest width of 690 metres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of the dam<\/a> is unique<\/strong> because it began on Italian soil and ended in Switzerland<\/strong>, the result of an exchange of land between the two countries. The reservoir lies almost entirely in Italy while the dam itself resides in Switzerland<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Val
A Blue Tongue in the Alps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Val Di Lei: the benefits of the dam <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The construction of the dam <\/strong>and the filling\nof the reservoir that would create a large artificial lake<\/a> did not discourage tourism, which had always\nflourished in Val di Lei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located in the comune of Piuro in the province of\nSondrio, the valley is more than 2,000 metres above sea level and it stretches\nfor 15 kilometres. It is the only Italian alpine valley that belongs to the\nbasin of the Rhine River, which is partly fed by the waters of the artificial\nlake. Winter skiers and summer campers are habitual visitors of this beautiful\npart of the Alps, which has remained untouched notwithstanding this huge piece\nof infrastructure. To this day, the valley can only be reached by road from\nSwitzerland, which passes the comune of Ferrera. From Italy, Val di Lei<\/strong>\nis still reachable only by foot, taking the Angeloga or other minor passes that\nconnect the valley to Spluga Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the top of the dam there is a parking lot for campers and daytime visitors. For those interested in the dam\u2019s history<\/strong>, there is a centre with photographs, objects from the work site and other material. The beauty of the artificial lake<\/a> is its mirror surface and the transparent water that seems like a blue tongue running along the valley. Its wealth of trout makes it an ideal spot for fishing amateurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During fishing season, which lasts from June to September, the lake\u2019s shores are populated by dogs and fishing rods in search of trout.
The fascinating, unblemished mountain with its clean air, silence and incompassing peace contribute to integrating the dam with nature\u2019s beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ermanno Olmi, the famous Italian director, was still young when he made \u201cUn metro lungo cinque\u201d (roughly translated from the Italian as \u201cOne Metre Is As Long As Five\u201d), the documentary film about the construction of the dam in Val di Lei, or the Valley of Lei. What drew the director\u2019s gaze and curiosity was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":543169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[18998,19000,12216],"yst_prominent_words":[8727,17285,12583,3176,8718,117,14752,36867,17197,4152,36902,14152,19468,17147,8714,36866,36865,1225,14259,21712],"class_list":["post-529836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reportage","tag-europe","tag-renewable-energies","tag-water"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529836"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566927,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529836\/revisions\/566927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529836"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.webuildvalue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=529836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}