Country United States Opening date 1962 Height 122 m Catchment area 8,262 km² Construction began 1957 | Status In use Impounds San Juan River Opened 1962 Create Navajo Lake | |
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Location San Juan and Rio Arriba Counties, New Mexico Type of dam Rolled earthfill embankment Owner United States Bureau of Reclamation Similar Crystal Dam, Blue Mesa Dam, Fontenelle Dam, Morrow Point Dam, Flaming Gorge Dam | ||
Navajo Dam is an earthen dam on the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in northwestern New Mexico in the United States. The dam and its reservoir, Navajo Lake, lie in the arid western foothills of the Rocky Mountains about 30 miles (48 km) east of Farmington.
Contents
Map of Navajo Dam, NM 87419, USA
HistoryEdit
This dam was built as part of the Colorado River Storage Project, a massive system of dams and reservoirs across the upper Colorado River Basin, by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Although the first studies for a dam on the San Juan were made as early as 1904, it was not considered seriously until the 1930s with the onset of heavy water use in the Colorado watershed. Construction started in 1957 and was completed on September 15, 1962. Today it is one of four major storage facilities for the project – Glen Canyon, Blue Mesa and Flaming Gorge are the three others.
The construction of the dam and the resulting lake flooded and destroyed one of the Navajos' most sacred sites.
DimensionsEdit
The Navajo Dam is 402 feet (123 m) high and 3,648 feet (1,112 m) long. Its crest is at an elevation of 6,108 feet (1,862 m). The reservoir formed behind the dam, Navajo Lake, is 35 miles (56 km) long and stores 1,708,600 acre feet (2.1075 km3) of water. The dam has one spillway, an ungated concrete chute capable of discharging 34,000 cubic feet per second (960 m3/s).
Power generationEdit
Despite its location on a major river and its massive height, the dam was built solely for storage purposes and thus did not have a power plant when construction was completed in 1962. Between 1974–1976, the city of Farmington contracted with Reclamation to build a 23 MW hydroelectric plant at the base of the dam. Due to environmental and legal concerns, construction was not completed until 1983. The plant was later uprated to a capacity of 32 MW.