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Navajo Lake
Reservoir in New Mexico and Colorado, United States
Reservoir in New Mexico and Colorado, United States
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Navajo Lake |
| image | View Navajo Lake State Park New Mexico 2023.jpg |
| caption | A view of Navajo Lake from Navajo Lake State Park. |
| location | Rio Arriba / San Juan counties in New Mexico; |
| Archuleta County in Colorado, United States | |
| coords | |
| type | reservoir |
| inflow | San Juan River, Piedra River |
| outflow | San Juan River |
| catchment | 3190 sqmi |
| basin_countries | United States |
| area | 15600 acre |
| volume | 1708600 acre.ft |
| elevation | 6085 ft |
| pushpin_map | New Mexico#Colorado#USA |
| pushpin_map_alt | Location of Navajo Lake in New Mexico and Colorado, USA. |
| website | Official website |
Archuleta County in Colorado, United States | max-depth =

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