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Navajo Lake

Reservoir in New Mexico and Colorado, United States

Navajo Lake

Summary

Reservoir in New Mexico and Colorado, United States

FieldValue
nameNavajo Lake
imageView Navajo Lake State Park New Mexico 2023.jpg
captionA view of Navajo Lake from Navajo Lake State Park.
locationRio Arriba / San Juan counties in New Mexico;
Archuleta County in Colorado, United States
coords
typereservoir
inflowSan Juan River, Piedra River
outflowSan Juan River
catchment3190 sqmi
basin_countriesUnited States
area15600 acre
volume1708600 acre.ft
elevation6085 ft
pushpin_mapNew Mexico#Colorado#USA
pushpin_map_altLocation of Navajo Lake in New Mexico and Colorado, USA.
websiteOfficial website

Archuleta County in Colorado, United States | max-depth =

Location of Navajo Lake within New Mexico

Navajo Lake is a reservoir located in San Juan County and Rio Arriba County in northwestern New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. Portions of the reservoir extend into Archuleta County in southern Colorado. The lake is part of the Colorado River Storage Project, which here manages the upper reaches of the San Juan River, storing and releasing water that is used locally for irrigation, or ultimately reaching the Colorado River in Utah. Water is impounded in Navajo Lake by the earth- and rock-filled Navajo Dam, 3800 ft long and 400 ft high, completed in 1962. The 15600 acre lake is over 25 mi long and lies at an elevation of up to 6085 ft.

The construction of the dam and the resulting lake flooded and destroyed one of the Navajos' most sacred sites.

The Lake and associated shoreline areas near the dam in New Mexico and the river shorelines below the dam are part of New Mexico's Navajo Lake State Park, while the Portion of the shoreline and portion of the lake that is located in Colorado make up Navajo State Park which is managed as part of the Colorado State Parks system. The lake has smallmouth bass, black crappie, northern pike, channel catfish, and trout. The lake also is home to a healthy population of kokanee salmon, which though nonnative to the lake, are thriving. The waters of Navajo Lake forced hundreds of families to leave their homes and communities. The four communities affected were Los Arboles, Los Pinos, Rose and Los Martinez. The 1.7 million acre-foot reservoir displaced an unknown amount of farms and ranches. It has been estimated that almost 200 families had to move. Some families had been living there for nearly 80–90 years.

References

References

  1. {{gnis. 892389
  2. Linford, Laurance. ''Navajo Places. History, Legend, Landscape.'' University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City: 2000.
  3. Lance. (2021-12-16). "Navajo Lake, New Mexico Kokanee Salmon Fishing -".
  4. Romeo, Jonathan. "Researchers record the stories of communities inundated by Navajo Lake".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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