Carlsbad Project

State: New Mexico
Region: Upper Colorado Basin Region

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Carlsbad Project History (67 KB)

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Construction

Avalon Dam was rebuilt and the project distribution system repaired and extended by 1907. Sumner Dam was built during 1936-1937. Sumner Dam was raised 16 feet, the service spillway capacity increased, and an emergency spillway constructed during the 1954-1956 reconstruction. McMillan Dam was rehabilitated in 1908 and breached in 1991. Sinkholes have been an ongoing problem along the eastern edge of McMillan Reservoir causing extensive water losses. The east dike was extended about 1,600 feet in 1934-1935, and construction of an extended dike 10,700 feet long was initiated in 1954 to cut off additional sinkholes. The dike was extended an additional 1,000 feet in 1968. In 1967, the Carlsbad Irrigation District entered into a rehabilitation and betterment program with the Bureau of Reclamation for concrete lining and improvement of the irrigation distribution system. This program resulted in concrete lining and improvements to some 79 miles of laterals, which significantly reduced water losses and provided a more efficient delivery of water. The Carlsbad Irrigation District has received an extension of the rehabilitation and betterment program to line another 16 miles of laterals and about 9 miles of canals with concrete. A long growing season, good soil, favorable markets, and irrigation facilities make intensive diversified farming practices attractive and profitable. Cotton and alfalfa are the principal crops, although wheat, barley, oats, and vegetables are produced in abundance. Sumner Dam contributes materially to the economy of the area by controlling seasonal floods of the Pecos River. Brantley Dam of the Brantley Project, about 13 miles north of Carlsbad, New Mexico, also provides flood control benefits and also helps project Avalon Dam. Brantley Dam has 335,054 acre-feet capacity assigned to flood control functions. The Carlsbad Project has provided an accumulated $639,000 in flood control benefits from 1950 to 1999. Lake Sumner is in a semidesert area and furnishes year round recreation benefits. There are camping and picnic grounds, cabin sites, and boat docks with small boats for hire. The reservoir provides good bass and catfish fishing in season. For specific information about any of these recreation sites, click on the name below. http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=87 http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=98 http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=819 http://www.recreation.gov/detail.cfm?ID=103 At the turn of the century, New Mexico was still a territory. In many ways, the `Great American Desert` of the Southwest was still a frontier. A former haven for desperadoes and renegade Apaches, New Mexico was experiencing the last days of unbounded adolescence. Only a few years before, the Lincoln County War erupted in violence, threatening the countryside of eastern New Mexico. Here, on the high plains of the Trans-Pecos, a former sheriff of Lincoln County named Pat Garrett dug a small ditch to his land near Roswell. The settlement of the American West has long been linked to the availability of water. In eastern New Mexico, early irrigation attempts focused on the Pecos River. Extensive private ventures in the area, for all their good intent, eventually met failure. Like many irrigation projects across the West, the Carlsbad Project was resurrected by the Bureau of Reclamation. Carlsbad was one of the earliest Reclamation projects, and is one of the more significant projects in terms of surviving examples of mixed 19th and 20th century technology. The Carlsbad Project is located along the Pecos River in southeastern New Mexico near the city of Carlsbad. Located in the Chihuahuan Desert, the project enjoys a number of sun-drenched days during the 212 day growing season. Temperatures sometimes reach 111 degrees at the project`s 3100 foot elevation. Rainfall of only 12.4 inches a year forced settlers to rely on irrigation methods. The project`s water supply derives from two river basins. The Pecos River Basin above Lake McMillan drains 16,990 square miles with annual runoff of 234,700 acre-feet. Part of the project`s water comes from diversion of the Black River, 15 miles southeast of Carlsbad, and three miles northwest of Malaga. The river basin above the diversion point drains 343 square miles generating 9,000 acre-feet.(1) The project included four dam sites and reservoirs, and an extensive lateral and canal network. Avalon Dam and Reservoir are located five miles north of Carlsbad on the Pecos River. McMillan Dam was breached following construction of Brantley Dam, in 1987. It was located nine miles above Avalon, and 14 miles northwest of Carlsbad. Both Avalon and McMillans represented early private irrigation ventures rehabilitated by Reclamation. Sumner Dam and Lake lie 250 miles north of Carlsbad, 16 miles northwest of Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Previously known as Alamogordo Dam and Reservoir, the location was redesignated in 1974, to help tourists avoid confusing the place with the city of Alamogordo, 150 miles away. Brantley Dam, between McMillan and Avalon, is located 13 miles north of Carlsbad near the old McMillan site. Both Brantley and Sumner were designed and constructed from the outset by the Bureau of Reclamation. Forty-one miles of canals, 137.6 miles of laterals, and 32 miles of drains comprise the distribution system. At the east end of Avalon Dam, the Main Canal runs south along the Pecos River three miles below the dam, where it divides into the East Canal and the Southern Main Canal. The East Canal continues for six miles on the east side of the Pecos River. The Southern Main Canal runs south to the river, which it crosses one mile northwest of Carlsbad via concrete aqueduct. The Southern Main Canal then moves south for 21 miles to the Black River Canal at Malaga.(2) The Carlsbad Irrigation District includes 25,000 acres of irrigable land. These lands extend for 20 miles along the Pecos River, three to five miles in width. The project`s irrigation system serves more than 700 persons on 155 farms. Most of the irrigated lands of the project lie between Avalon Dam on the north, and the mouth of the Black River near Malaga. Stretching north along the project at its inception were the towns of Malaga, Loving, Otis, Phoenix, Carlsbad, Avalon, and Lakewood, at Lake McMillan. Long before expeditions crossed the staked plains of eastern New Mexico and west Texas, Native Americans made the area their home. In the arid region of the Trans-Pecos, irrigation was necessary to supplement a diet which relied upon the availability of meat on the hoof. To the northwest, in the `four corners` region, the Anasazi-Pueblo culture had employed flood-water farming, cultivating small, widely scattered plots.(3)Descendants of the Anasazi moved south and east along the Rio Grande and as far east as the Pecos River. Coronado counted three villages on the Pecos during his unsuccessful 16th century bid to find gold in the Southwest.(4) Various bands of Apache roamed southeastern New Mexico into the late 19th century. The Apache maintained a presence in the area as long as buffalo were nearby and the Comanche were not. Sheepherders took advantage of lush grasses along the Pecos River until Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving began trailing cattle through the region in 1865.(5) Most 19th century history of the Trans-Pecos reflected ranching interests, not farming. Consequently, water rights were first appropriated for cattle and sheep along small tributaries of the Pecos River. But, U.S. Geological Surveys suggested that with the proper irrigation tools in place, the region would become a prime growing area.(6) Early promoters of Pecos country irrigation included Pat Garrett, known primarily as the Lincoln County sheriff who shot William Bonney, or `Billy the Kid`, in 1881. Garrett established an 1800 acre farm near Roswell in the mid 1880`s. Garrett met Charles B. Eddy, a New Mexico and Colorado rancher who established himself on the Pecos River in 1881. Eddy was adept at public relations, promoting irrigation in the Pecos valley while accumulating vast tracts of land and water rights.(7) Eddy`s ranching enterprise, the Eddy and Bissel Livestock Company, and the Holt Livestock Company were the two prominent ranching endeavors on the lower Pecos. As in many parts of the West, land acquisitions along the Pecos resulted from manipulation of the Desert Land Acts of 1877 and 1886.(8) By 1886, Eddy had constructed a small irrigation ditch near La Huerta, north of Carlsbad, possibly in response to the legendary winter and drought of that year. Eddy incorporated his small system in October, 1887 with the intention of building three major canal systems east and west of the lower Pecos, and near Roswell.(9) In 1888, Garrett and Eddy joined forces and sought financial backing. They enlisted the support of Robert Weems Tansill, who had made a fortune selling cigars in Chicago, and Charles W. Greene, sometime newspaperman and full-time Southwest promoter. In July, 1888, the Pecos Irrigation and Investment Company, backed by Chicago investors, replaced Eddy`s Pecos Valley Land and Ditch Company. Although settlers began arriving as early as 1888, the townsite of Eddy was not officially founded until 1889. Originally, the new irrigation headquarters was to be called Halagueno, but Tansill and his wife convinced Eddy that the proposed name was too hard to pronounce. The Eddy Argus, the local newspaper, touted the growth of the new town. Over 12,000 shade trees had been planted by November 22, 1890. Plans called for a new courthouse, parks, schools, and railroad facilities. The new town boasted a livery stable and feed corral, blacksmith and wagon shop, two real estate and insurance firms, a brickyard and lime kiln, lumber yard, four grocery stores, two drug stores, two barber shops, a butcher shop, billiard hall, a sixty-room hotel, several residences, restaurants, a stage line, three churches - and absolutely no liquor. Persons not so temperately inclined were directed a mile down the road to Phoenix, a community of outlaws, gamblers, and prostitutes, with a population of 900. After the departure of Charles Eddy, in 1895, the town of Eddy renamed itself Carlsbad.(10) Besides the establishment of a thriving town, the recruitment of James J. Hagerman, a Colorado Springs capitalist was crucial to future irrigation activities in the lower Pecos valley. Hagerman made a fortune in Colorado and Idaho silver mining and railroad construction.(11) With financial backing from Hagerman and others, the new company began designing a workable irrigation system. The company first built a diversion dam at present-day Avalon, and a canal which paralleled the east bank of the Pecos. The canal crossed over the river three miles south of Avalon by wooden flume. Various contractors employing workers from outside the area, built tent cities near the project, one of which was christened, `Flumetown` because of its proximity to the wooden structure. Flumetown claimed 180 laborers, a number of mechanics, a blacksmith shop, commissary, and harness shop. During the fall of 1889, construction of the flume generated considerable excitement among Eddy residents. For the time, its proportions were massive, allowing four (mule or horse) teams to walk across the floor side by side without difficulty. Eight feet deep and twenty-five feet across the top, the flume ran for 475 feet and was largely completed in the spring of 1890, by Witt Brothers Company.(12) As work on the flume ended, work at Avalon continued. The dam was impressive for the 19th century. Although original plans called for a diversion dam, Pecos Irrigation and Investment decided to provide water storage as well. The result was a structure capable of holding back a reservoir stretching for six miles. Early estimates of reservoir capacity tended to be inflated. Estimates in 1896 were approximately 6,887 acre-feet. Avalon`s rockfill structure with impervious earthfill facing was one of the first of its type to be used for irrigation in the United States. The dam`s rockfill design followed those first used in 1860`s and 70`s hydraulic mining in California. A hand-laid rock wall separated the rockfill from the impervious earth facing, the latter consisting of earth sacks, gravel, boughs, and loose earth. Eighteen inches of rip-rap protected the original upstream facing against undercutting. The dam stood forty five feet high and stretched for 1070 feet at its crest.(13) One of the unique characteristics of the original Avalon Dam was a sluicegate running through the dam, a technologically troublesome feature because of the possibility of earth washout around the sluice. The sluicegate, made of stone laid in concrete eight feet thick, was ninety feet long. Two thousand second-feet of water passed through the gate to feed a wooden flume and Charles Eddy`s old canal near La Huerta.(14) The western spillway, five feet below crest, 300 feet long and 256 feet wide, complimented a second one located seven feet below the crest of the dam which was 206 feet long. Thirty one headgates, partially operated by a vertical releasing rod, were joined by 10 escape gates which returned water to the river.(15) Avalon`s canal headworks were built into a 500 foot channel carved out of solid limestone on the east side of the dam. Six wooden headgates controlled a capacity of 3,000 second-feet of water. The gates, five by nine feet, slid between wooden posts, and were manipulated by turning a steel screw from above.(16) The most important player to emerge in the unfolding history of private irrigation in the lower Pecos valley, was James J. Hagerman. Hagerman fought continuously to make an oasis out of the New Mexico desert. In his mind this meant revamping the corporate structure of Pecos Irrigation and Investment Company to allow it to sell not only irrigation water, but the land to be serviced by the water. On July 1, 1890, the Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company absorbed all assets of the former company. The new venture was capitalized at $1,750,000(17)largely through investments by Colorado businessmen and Swiss bankers. Hagerman revised the charter of the old company which had not allowed for ownership or selling of property beyond what was necessary to provide irrigation.(18) James Hagerman increasingly assumed major control of irrigation and transportation enterprises in the Pecos Valley in the 1890`s. In 1890, Hagerman incorporated the Pecos Valley Railroad Company and contracted Bradbury and Company, the Denver builders of the canal system, to construct a rail line from Eddy (Carlsbad) to Pecos, Texas. Hagerman wanted his line to connect with the Texas and Pacific Railroad system to improve access to markets. In January, 1891, the line was completed, and by 1893 the irrigation system was operational. Friction between Charles Eddy`s company, Pecos Valley Town Company, and Hagerman`s increasing control of Pecos Irrigation and Investment led to formation of the Pecos Valley Company, in 1893. The holding company attempted to remedy the conflict between Hagerman and Eddy interests and provide greater coordination of development in the valley.(19) According to the Reclamation Service`s account, the construction of Hagerman`s ambitious irrigation plant and railroad were not in keeping with the realities of the time. Construction was ` several years ahead of any demand for irrigated lands in this region. There were no settlers to occupy them and no market for its products when settlers came`.(20)Hagerman envisioned building his railroad to Amarillo, which had links to the midwest, but lack of funding led to the Pecos option.(21) In August of 1893, seasonal flooding washed out the Avalon Dam, including two bridges and the wooden flume across the Pecos River. Hagerman`s personal investment during 1894 resulted in further construction of rail lines to Roswell. Hagerman`s irrigation company had realized before the Avalon disaster that a second reservoir was necessary to meet the needs of a burgeoning canal system. Consequently, in 1892, work had commenced on the Mcmillan Dam, nine miles upstream from the Avalon site. By 1894, Mcmillan Dam and Reservoir were in place.(22) According to Engineering News, September 17, 1896, the dam was similar to the original Avalon structure, only larger. McMillan was a rodkfill dam, 1,835 feet long, fifty-six feet high, with upstream earth facing. The facing was paved with eighteen inches of hand laid broken stone. Water entered into an 1100 foot rock channel 35 feet below the dam's crest via six wooden headgates. Like the Avalon works, manually operated iron screws controlled the gates. On the east side of the Pecos, a rock outlet canal diverted water out of the river bed, then back to the river some 300 feet downstream. A long earth embankment ran along Lake McMillan's west bank, creating an L where it intersected the dam. A spillway at the west end of the dam diverted water into an arroyo and back into the river bed two miles below.(23)Maximum storage capacity for the newly created reservoir was 80,000 acre-feet.(24)McMillan served as a storage facility, releasing water to downstream Avalon, which served as the distribution center for the canal system. Right in the midst of the greatest irrigation efforts by Hagerman and company, disaster struck. The destruction of Avalon Dam in 1893 occurred at a most inopportune time. Hagerman's main source of capital came from the silver mines of Colorado. With the collapse of silver prices precipitating the Panic of 1893, Hagerman boldly decided to invest what he could into rebuilding the Avalon Dam and infrastructure. Interestingly, irrigation promoters were using the panic as an argument for development of arid lands. Irrigated lands would provide the `safety valve` alluded to by historian Frederick Jackson Turner, and give the downtrodden a new chance in the West. Settlers, however, balked at paying higher prices for watered lands in the West than they would pay for prime lands back east. The Third National Irrigation Congress was preparing to address the issue. Settlers across the West clamored for state or federal bonds to pay for irrigation projects, and the extension of automatic water rights.(25) By October, 1893, work crews totalling 500 men and 165 teams started rebuilding the hapless Avalon Dam. Similar to the original structure, the new dam was raised five feet and extended sixty five feet. The capacity of the west end spillway was increased to deal with flood waters, and a third spillway was added further west.(26) Salvage crews returned 60,000 board feet of flume timbers from as far away as Pecos, Texas, and rebuilt the wooden structure.(27) In 1894, as Hagerman's railroad reached Roswell, Charles Eddy resigned as general manager of Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company, and sold most of his holdings in the valley. The departure of Eddy represented only one in a series of downturns for Pecos Irrigation. Contemporary articles attested to the presence of fertile soils bearing fruits, grains, and vegetables, capable administration, and maintenance by local `ditch-riders`.(28) Such journal articles and accolades by the New Mexico `Bureau of Immigration` proclaiming the Pecos as a veritable `fruit belt` had little to do with actual experience. Experimentation with a variety of crops in the region had met with limited success. Vineyards and orchards succumbed to dust storms, root disease, and an erratic water supply. Further experimentation entailed the use of Indian corn, kaffir corn, milo maize, sorghum, alfalfa, and sugar beets. Alfalfa was somewhat successful, but yields were low.(29) The financial condition of the irrigation company was precarious, with expenditures always exceeding income. James Hagerman's dogged determination to make the irrigation enterprise succeed began to wane, and consequently, so did his financial support. The company was forced into receivership in 1898, the same day that the wooden flume again washed away. A reorganization plan placed the company's plant and operation under the authority of The Pecos Irrigation Company, on August 17, 1900.(30) Under receivership, the fortunes of the company improved temporarily, possibly due to the construction of a rail line to Amarillo, Texas, and the introduction of cotton to the area. Although the irrigation system's canal network leaked like a sieve, enough water was delivered to nourish crops on 9,131 acres. But by 1902, it was painfully obvious to early company directors Francis Tracy and Robert Tansill that massive improvements were necessary to make the system viable for the long term.(31) The state of disrepair of the entire system was reflected in the reports of chief engineer, B.E. Killough, and W.M. Reed. Killough's report discussed repairing or improving spillways, sluicegates, canal banks, and headgates. Reed's report mentioned severe leakage in McMillan Reservoir and along the canal network.(32) An obvious feature needing repair was the Pecos River flume, originally built of wood, and soon to be concrete. The new flume, reportedly the largest in the United States, was completed in 1903. Robert Tansill had died in December, 1902, and Tracy became the standard-bearer of the company. Realizing their dire financial situation, Tansill and Tracy had lured to Carlsbad, F.H. Newell, the new chief of Reclamation. Tansill wanted to discuss the possibility of a bailout, under provisions of the Reclamation Act, of 1902. After Tansill's death, Tracy continued to advocate federal assistance for the lower Pecos, while at the same time, criticizing a competing Reclamation project proposed for the Hondo River, near Roswell. Nature soon made the Hondo dispute irrelevant. At 11p.m., on October 1, 1904, a flood pushed against the earth facing of Avalon Dam, creating a passage for more than 80,000 second-feet of water. The second failure of Avalon in eleven years damaged the flume, swept away three bridges, and cut a new channel around the dam site, twice as wide as it had been.(33) The story of private reclamation on the lower Pecos is not so different from many such projects across the West. Encouraged by grandiose pseudo-scientific claims about `rain following the plow`, or prodding rain clouds into activity with dynamite, many settlers came west. Proponents of western irrigation, such as William E. Smythe, editor of Irrigation Age, identified the seventeen states west of the ninety-seventh meridian as a utopia, awaiting the secret elixir, water. Smythe heralded the climate, resources, and fertility of the land. Smythe claimed that the rich soils of the arid West produced four to ten times as much as eastern soils without irrigation.(34) Such claims aside, over 90% of the private irrigation companies were bankrupt or close to it by 1900. A number of reasons account for such failures. Poor design and construction, short growing seasons, alkali soils, inadequate drainage, and poor assessment of water availability brought substandard results. Canal projects on public lands ran into laws designed to function in humid eastern regions, not in the vast stretches of the arid West. Speculators filing claims under the Homestead and Desert Land acts refused to enter into agreements with irrigation companies for water rights or fee payments, thereby blackmailing companies into purchasing their claims.(35) By the twentieth century, the federal government started playing an increasing role in reclamation of western lands. Carlsbad was not high on the priority list, but on November 28, 1905, the Secretary of the Interior approved rehabilitation of the project to prevent its cultivated land from returning to wasteland. The Pecos Irrigation and Improvement Company accepted $150,000 for the remains of their dilipadidated irrigation system. Another $450,000 was allocated for its restoration. Twenty years later, additional storage facilities enhanced the project. Alamogordo (Sumner) Dam was approved by President Franklin Roosevelt on November 6, 1935, with funding appropriated August 14, under the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935. The Flood Control Act of 1935 specified in section 7 that Alamogordo Dam and Reservoir were to be used first for irrigation, followed by flood control, river regulation, and other beneficial uses.(36)Public Law 92-514 gave Congressional authorization for the Brantley Project, October 20, 1972. Named after a longtime Carlsbad Irrigation District Board Member, Brantley is a multi-purpose dam completed in 1987.(37). Following the October, 1904 flood, the Pecos Water Users Association, led by F.G. Tracy, launched a massive advocacy campaign. The design of the campaign was to convince the Reclamation Service to purchase and rehabilitate the irrigation system of the lower Pecos. W.M. Reed, former chief engineer for Pecos Irrigation, and B.M. Hall, U.S.G.S. engineer from El Paso, began surveys and investigations into the plant and operations of the moribund company. In a preliminary report, the two men concluded that the system could be temporarily repaired for $20,000 to irrigate crops for the 1905 growing season. Reed and Hall were very sympathetic to the water user's pleas, and Washington responded in a like manner. Work crews and equipment began to arrive in January, 1905, although final approval of long-term renovation did not come until November 28. As local Hispanics completed the repairs immediately necessary for operation, Reclamation's long-term plans for the project were delayed. Pecos Irrigation Company had accepted the government's offer of $150,000 for its dilapidated plant and lands. Reclamation was prepared to pay an additional $450,000 to rebuild the entire system, but only after the company's abstract of title was examined to establish property boundaries and water rights.(38) Authorization to begin work was delayed until February 24, 1906. April 12 was the date opening bids for Avalon Dam's reconstruction. No bids were received, so Reclamation prepared to build by force account. Force account meant that Reclamation was in charge of the project, from design to hiring subcontractors and labor to construction. Preparatory work began May 1, 1906, with actual construction beginning June 1. A portion of the old Avalon dam was incorporated into the new structure. Again, Avalon was built using the earth and rockfill design, stretching 1,025 feet across the Pecos, and standing fifty feet high. A core wall, founded on bedrock, ran 24 feet below dam crest. Designs called for using rubble concrete and steel interlocking channel bar sheet piling. Driving the sheet piling to bedrock proved difficult and expensive, so trenching was used instead. A vertical diaphragm of reinforced concrete extended from the top of the core wall to the crest of the dam. Trenching for the core wall disclosed a strata of gravel on the west side of the dam which was extremely pervious. Consequently, a six inch thick concrete wall, 129 feet long and eight feet high, was placed upstream, thirty feet from the core wall. Three spillways, considerably larger than their predecessors, were provided for flood control.(39) Spillway number one featured thirty-nine pairs of wooden emergency gates. One gate of each pair opened upstream, the other, downstream. Each pair was connected by cables and pulleys, allowing both gates to be opened simultaneously by water pressure. Work at Avalon progressed simultaneoussly from each bank of the river. According to project reports, construction of the dam progressed smoothly and was completed in November, 1907.(40) Elsewhere on the Carlsbad Project, workers completed the aborted rehabilitation of the Pecos River Flume. Reclamation spent $18,000 fixing broken concrete, widening and strengthening the footings, and lengthening the flume. A new siphon across Dark Canyon two miles south of Carlsbad was designed to transfer the main canal's water beneath the floor of the canyon to avoid recurring washouts. The concrete siphon was 400 feet long and was built during the winter of 1906-1907. Canal work emphasized eliminating seepage through subterranean gypsum deposits. Reclamation lined these areas with concrete. During the 1906-1907 winter, workers built new concrete control gates and spillway structures. The new gates replaced the antiquated wooden gates which were inefficient.(41)

Plan

The Project provides for regulation and storage of irrigation and flood water in Lake Sumner, and Avalon Reservoir, with diversion of water from Avalon Reservoir into a canal system to irrigate project lands on both sides of the Pecos River near Carlsbad. Rehabilitated in 1908, this zoned earthfill dam was 57 feet high and had a volume of 234,000 cubic yards. The reservoir capacity as built was 82,600 acre-feet but siltation had reduced the active capacity to about 33,600 acre-feet (based on survey of September 1964). The dam was located about 14 miles northwest of Carlsbad. When Reclamation completed Brantley Dam [http://www.usbr.gov/dataweb/html/brantley.html] in 1991, Reclamation drained McMillan Reservoir and breached McMillan Dam. In addition to forming a small storage and regulating reservoir, Avalon Dam serves as the diversion dam for the project by diverting water into the Main Canal. The dam is located on the Pecos River 5 miles north of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The dam is a zoned earthfill structure that was constructed by private interests in 1888. The dam washed out in 1893 and, after reconstruction, was washed out again in 1904 by the Pecos River flood. The Reclamation Service rebuilt the dam in 1907. The height of the dam was increased in 1912, and again in 1936. The dam now has a structural height of 60 feet and a volume of 202,000 cubic yards. The dam now has a structural height of 60 feet and a volume of 202,000 cubic yards. This is an earthfilled structure 1,360 feet long and 53 feet high. There are three spillways and an outlet works. The original reservoir storage capacity was 7,000 acre-feet; a 1996 resurvey showed a capacity of 4,466 acre-feet at the top of conservation pool. Sumner Dam and Lake Sumner are on the Pecos River about 250 river miles north of Carlsbad and about 16 miles northwest of Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The dam is a zoned earthfill structure 164 feet high with a volume of 2,250,000 cubic yards. The dam was constructed in 1937 with a major modification in 1956 which raised the dam and increased the spillway capacity. The dam is a zoned earthfill structure 164 feet high with a volume of 2,250,000 cubic yards. It is approximately 3,00 feet long, averages 30 feet wide at the crest, and is 164 feet high at the maximum section. The outlet works consist of a combination pressure tunnel and a 10-foot diameter penstock upstream of the gates and two penstocks, 5.5 feet in diameter, downstream. Releases are controlled by two 48-inch diameter jet flow valves, with a capacity up to 1,740 cubic feet per second at the top of the flood control pool. Irrigation releases, up to 100 cubic feet per second, may be made through a 20-inch jet flow valve. Larger releases are made through a service spillway near the west end of the dam. This service spillway is a tainter-gated chute-type structure with three 45-foot openings and an invert elevation at 4,259 feet mean sea level. An emergency spillway in the left abutment consists of a fuse plug type embankment. A 500-foot concrete sill, with a crest elevation of 4,275 feet mean sea level, is covered with earth and rock fill, and forms four individual sections at elevations 4,282, 4,283, 4,284, and 4,285 feet mean sea level. These sections are 130 feet, 130 feet, 118 feet, and 118 feet respectively. The reservoir has an estimated active conservation capacity of 43,768 acre-feet in 1999. In addition to storage for irrigation, the dam and reservoir provide flood control and recreation benefits. While there is no storage allocated to recreation, there is a minimum pool of 2,500 acre feet. In 1980, a transfer of irrigation storage rights to Santa Rosa Dam (a Corps of Engineers' dam), and Reservoir in Northern New Mexico provided for more flood control storage in Lake Sumner (under direction of the Corps of Engineers). From the east abutment of Avalon Dam, the Main Canal extends generally south along the Pecos River for about 3 miles below the dam, where it divides into the East Canal and the Southern Main Canal. The East Canal continues for about 6 miles. The Southern Main Canal runs south to the Pecos River, which it crosses about 1 mile northwest of Carlsbad through a concrete aqueduct, and continues in a generally southerly direction for about 21 miles to its terminus at the Black River Supply Ditch about 3 miles northwest of Malaga. The design capacities of the Main, East, and Southern Main Canals are 490,45, and 450 cubic feet per second, respectively. The Black River Supply Ditch empties into the Black River just above a small concrete diversion dam that supplies water to the Black River Canal. This ditch irrigates lands south of the Black River and west of the Pecos River. Seepage and drainage water from Carlsbad Project lands is returned through a drainage system to the Pecos River. There are 151 miles of laterals, 37 miles of canals, and about 24 miles of drains. Reclamation is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and oversight of the Carlsbad Project. The Carlsbad Irrigation District operates and maintains Sumner and Brantley Dams.

Contact

Operator

Title: Area Office Manager
Organization: South-Central California Area Office
Address: 1243 "N" Street
City: Fresno, CA 93721-1813
Phone: 559-487-5116

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Organization: Carlsbad Irrigation District
Address: 201 South Canal St
City: Carlsbad, NM 88220
Phone: 505-885-3203

Contact

Title: Area Office Manager
Organization: Albuquerque Area Office
Address: 555 Broadway NE, Suite 100
City: Albuquerque, NM 87102-2352
Phone: 505-462-3542

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Carlsbad Project

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