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Col. Andrew Baker, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District, and Justin Gay, deputy district engineer for the LA District, toured the Painted Rock Dam, a flood risk-reduction project and reservoir, located on the Gila River in Maricopa County March 25 near Gila Bend.
“The Painted Rock Dam and its operators are here to mitigate flood risk to Southern Arizona, and, particularly, the City of Yuma,” said Baker, who has been in command of the district since July. “We even have two Corps employees living at the dam to maintain and operate the facility.”
Most of year, the reservoir remains dry. Daily operations consist of maintenance, weather monitoring and assisting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but the last two years have seen an increase of waterflow potentially raising risk to the dam’s drainage area of 50,800 square miles.
“This team is essential to the flood-control mission in Arizona,” Baker said.
The dam consists of a debris pool, spillway, a gauging station and dikes, and is monitored 24/7 by USACE.
“It’s important to tour the spillway routinely,” said Michael Moran, a dam operator residing at the Painted Rock Dam facility. “The Spillway prevents overtopping, a case where waters pour over the top of the dam. This could lead to catastrophic dam failure. This is the only dam in the district to ever experience a flood so heavy that the spillway had to be used.”
According to USACE records, Painted Rock Dam was built specifically to protect downstream agriculture, Yuma and other towns and small businesses along the Gila River.
“Painted Rock is not just any other dam,” said River Kelty, a Painted Rock Dam operator, who recent transferred from Pine Flat Dam near Fresno, California. “This is the last control for most of Central Arizona’s water flow before entering the Colorado River.”
Painted Rock Dam is within the Gila River Drainage Basin and is operated by USACE’s Los Angeles District. It operates on a prediction basis, which establishes the rate of release for flood waters from the dam, based on upstream and downstream conditions.
“Because Painted Rock is a ‘catch and release’ dam, close coordination with other dams and their operators is very important to managing flood waters,” Kelty said.
Construction of the dam began in July 1957 and was completed in January 1960, at a cost of about $13.7 million.
“What I most enjoy about working with the Corps is being in service to the public and to the land,” Kelty said.
| Date Taken: | 03.25.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2024 19:46 |
| Story ID: | 468295 |
| Location: | GILA BEND, AZ, US |
| Web Views: | 36 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Los Angeles District leaders tour Painted Rock Dam, by Robert DeDeaux, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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