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The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
The San Juan River is a major tributary of the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States, providing the chief drainage for the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. Originating as snowmelt in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, it flows 383 miles (616 km) through the deserts of northern New Mexico and southeastern Utah to join the Colorado River at Glen Canyon.
New Melones Dam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Jamestown, California, United States, on the border of Calaveras County and Tuolumne County. The water impounded by the 625-foot-tall (191 m) dam forms New Melones Lake, California's fourth-largest reservoir, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley. The dam serves mainly for irrigation water supply, and also provides hydropower generation, flood control, and recreation benefits.
Keyhole State Park is a public recreation area surrounding Keyhole Reservoir, ten miles (16 km) northeast of Moorcroft in Crook County, Wyoming. The state park is managed by the Wyoming Division of State Parks and Historic Sites.
San Luis Dam is a major earth-filled dam in Merced County, California, which forms San Luis Reservoir, the largest off-stream reservoir in the United States. The dam and reservoir are located in the Diablo Range to the east of Pacheco Pass and about 10 miles (16 km) west of Los Banos. San Luis Dam, a jointly-owned state and federal facility, stores more than 2 million acre feet (2.5 km3) of water for the California State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Although the dam is located in the valley of San Luis Creek, the majority of its water comes from man-made aqueducts which are supplied from other rivers in Northern California.
The Colorado–Big Thompson Project is a federal water diversion project in Colorado designed to collect West Slope mountain water from the headwaters of the Colorado River and divert it to Colorado's Front Range and plains. In Colorado, approximately 80% of the state's precipitation falls on the West Slope, in the Rocky Mountains, while around 80% of the state's growing population lives along the eastern slope, between the cities of Fort Collins and Pueblo.
Pathfinder Dam is a masonry dam, located on the North Platte River, approximately 47 miles (76 km) southwest of Casper, Wyoming. It was originally constructed from 1905 to 1909 as part of the North Platte Project and has been modified several times since then. It is included on the National Register of Historic Places. Construction of the dam created Pathfinder Reservoir which provides water storage for 226,000 acres (910 km2) of irrigation in Wyoming and Nebraska. The dam is named for General John Charles Fremont, who had explored the area in 1842 and was nicknamed the "Pathfinder of the West."
Flaming Gorge Dam is a concrete thin-arch dam on the Green River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, in northern Utah in the United States. Flaming Gorge Dam forms the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which extends 91 miles (146 km) into southern Wyoming, submerging four distinct gorges of the Green River. The dam is a major component of the Colorado River Storage Project, which stores and distributes upper Colorado River Basin water.
The Shoshone Project is an irrigation project in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The project provides irrigation for approximately 107,000 acres (430 km2) of crops in the Big Horn Basin, fulfilling the vision of local resident and developer Buffalo Bill Cody, who hoped to make the semi-arid basin into agricultural land. Buffalo Bill Dam on the Shoshone River impounds water for the project in Buffalo Bill Reservoir. In addition to its role in irrigation, the project provides flood control on the Shoshone and generates power, using the 350-foot (110 m) height of Buffalo Bill Dam, once a world record, and the considerable fall of the river through Shoshone Canyon to generate hydroelectric power. Chief crops in the Big Horn Basin are sugar beets, alfalfa, barley, oats, corn and beans.
Fontenelle Reservoir is an artificial reservoir located in southwest Wyoming. It lies almost entirely within Lincoln County, although the east end of the Fontenelle Dam and a tiny portion of the reservoir are actually in northwestern Sweetwater County. Impounded by Fontenelle Dam, the reservoir acts primarily as a storage reservoir for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Storage Project, retaining Wyoming water in the state as a means of asserting Wyoming's water rights, with a secondary purpose of power generation. Water from Fontenelle Reservoir is used in local industries such as mining and power generation. Although initially projected to provide irrigation water for agriculture, the irrigation component was downgraded after difficulties with efficient irrigation in Wyoming's high semi-desert became apparent.
Navajo Dam is a dam on the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in northwestern New Mexico in the United States. The 402-foot (123 m) high earthen dam is situated in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains about 44 miles (71 km) upstream and east of Farmington, New Mexico. It was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) in the 1960s to provide flood control, irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply, and storage for droughts. A small hydroelectric power plant was added in the 1980s.
Jackson Lake Dam is a concrete and earth-fill dam in the western United States, at the outlet of Jackson Lake in northwestern Wyoming. The lake and dam are situated within Grand Teton National Park in Teton County. The Snake River emerges from the dam and flows about eight hundred miles (1,300 km) through Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to its mouth on the Columbia River in eastern Washington.
Yellowtail Dam is a dam across the Bighorn River in south central Montana in the United States. The mid-1960s era concrete arch dam serves to regulate the flow of the Bighorn for irrigation purposes and to generate hydroelectric power. The dam and its reservoir, Bighorn Lake, are owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The Central Utah Project is a US federal water project that was authorized for construction under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956, as a participating project. In general, the Central Utah Project develops a portion of Utah's share of the yield of the Colorado River, as set out in the Colorado River Compact of 1922.
The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper basin of the Colorado River. The project provides hydroelectric power, flood control and water storage for participating states along the upper portion of the Colorado River and its major tributaries.
Fontenelle Dam was built between 1961 and 1964 on the Green River in southwestern Wyoming. The 139-foot (42 m) high zoned earthfill dam impounds the 345,360-acre-foot (0.42600 km3) Fontenelle Reservoir. The dam and reservoir are the central features of the Seedskadee Project of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the Fontenelle impoundment primarily as a storage reservoir for the Colorado River Storage Project. The dam suffered a significant failure in 1965, when the dam's right abutment developed a leak. Emergency releases from the dam flooded downstream properties, but repairs to the dam were successful. However, in 1983 the dam was rated "poor" under Safety Evaluation of Existing Dams (SEED) criteria, due to continuing seepage, leading to an emergency drawdown. A concrete diaphragm wall was built through the core of the dam to stop leakage.
The Minidoka Project is a series of public works by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to control the flow of the Snake River in Wyoming and Idaho, supplying irrigation water to farmlands in Idaho. One of the oldest Bureau of Reclamation projects in the United States, the project involves a series of dams and canals intended to store, regulate and distribute the waters of the Snake, with electric power generation as a byproduct. The water irrigates more than a million acres (4,000 km²) of otherwise arid land, producing much of Idaho's potato crop. Other crops include alfalfa, fruit and sugar beets. The primary irrigation district lies between Ashton in eastern Idaho and Bliss in the southwestern corner of the state. Five main reservoirs collect water, distributing it through 1,600 miles (2,600 km) of canals and 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of lateral distribution ditches.
Seminoe Dam is a concrete thick-arch dam on the North Platte River in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The dam stores water for irrigation and hydroelectricity generation and is owned and operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It is the uppermost dam on the North Platte River and is located directly upstream from the Kortes Dam. It lies in a narrow, isolated canyon formed by the North Platte cutting through the Seminoe Mountains about 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Rawlins. The 295-foot (90 m) dam forms Seminoe Reservoir, which covers more than 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) when full. Seminoe State Park is adjacent to the reservoir. The small village of Seminoe Dam abuts the dam and reservoir and provides residence for the dam attendants and park services personnel.
Grassy Lake Dam is a small dam operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Teton County, Wyoming, immediately to the south of Yellowstone National Park. The dam lies in a corridor of Caribou-Targhee National Forest that runs between Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The dam structure and outlets are within a few hundred feet of the south boundary of Yellowstone. The zoned earthfill dam was built between 1937 and 1939 as part of the Minidoka Project, which provides water to irrigate farmland in Idaho's Snake River Plain.
The San Juan–Chama Project is a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation interbasin water transfer project located in the states of New Mexico and Colorado in the United States. The project consists of a series of tunnels and diversions that take water from the drainage basin of the San Juan River – a tributary of the Colorado River – to supplement water resources in the Rio Grande watershed. The project furnishes water for irrigation and municipal water supply to cities along the Rio Grande including Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
References
- ↑ "Seedskadee Project". U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
- ↑ Lineberger, Toni Rae. "Seedskadee Project" (PDF). U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
- ↑ Reisner, Marc (1993). Cadillac Desert: the American West and its disappearing water . Penguin Books. p. 379. ISBN 978-1-4406-7282-8.