NM Centennial -It's All About the Water In an arid state,
harnessing water from mountain snow melt and springs has always
been critical to sustaining agricultural production, The Bureau
of Reclamation's construction of Elephant Butte Dam, rising 301
feet tall and nearly 1,700 feet wide, between 1911 and 1916,
created the largest irrigation reservoir in the world at that
time. By creating a vast lake, the project also produced New
Mexico's most popular state park. The project was aimed at
taming the unpredictable flooding of the Rio Grande, to ensure
the regular supply of irrigation water and to consolidate small
privately built irrigation systems in the Rincon and Mesilla
Valleys. The amount of irrigated acreage in Southern New Mexico
tripled to more than 100,000 acres, according to the Bureau of
Reclamation. More next week...this information was supplied by
the Albuquerque Journal's "New Mexico, 100 years of Statehood"
special Centennial edition. Today, Sierra County celebrated with
a "Walk Across the Dam"..