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Blue Mesa Reservoir is an artificial reservoir located on the upper reaches of the Gunnison River in Gunnison County, Colorado.The largest lake located entirely within the state, Blue Mesa Reservoir was created by the construction of Blue Mesa Dam, a 390 feet (120 m) tall earthen fill dam constructed on the Gunnison by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1966 for the generation of hydroelectric ...
The Curecanti Project (later renamed the Wayne N. Aspinall Project) was conceived in 1955, initially with four dams. It was approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 1959, comprising Blue Mesa Dam and Morrow Point Dam. Crystal Dam's design was unfinished and was approved in 1962. Plans for a fourth dam were dropped as uneconomical.
The Blue Mesa and Navajo Dams, built primarily to function for flood control purposes, have saved approximately $10 million in flood-related costs up to the year 1999. [ 1 ] Additionally, the various units of the project have created significant recreational opportunities throughout the otherwise arid southwest regions.
The largest reservoir entirely contained in Colorado is Blue Mesa Reservoir, with a capacity of 829,500 acre⋅ft (1.0 billion m 3). The total storage of the reservoirs on this list is 3,804,458 acre⋅ft (4.7 billion m 3 ), although not all is allocated for use by Colorado.
Blue Mesa Reservoir from the air. Created by the construction of Blue Mesa Dam in 1966, Blue Mesa Reservoir is Colorado's largest body of water. Fed by the Lake Fork Arm of the Gunnison River, Soap Creek, and Cebolla Creek, the long, broad lake is 20 miles (32 km) long, has 96 miles (154 km) of shoreline, and is the largest Lake Trout and Kokanee salmon fishery in the United States.
In 2019 the Metropolitan Water District played a crucial role in the development of the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan (DCP). The Drought Contingency Plan aims to implement legislation to reduce the risk of declining levels in the Colorado River reservoirs, particularly by incentivizing agencies to store additional water in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. [7]
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Black Canyon of the Gunnison, June 2016. The Gunnison River is formed by the confluence of the Taylor and East rivers at Almont in eastern Gunnison County, Colorado.Just past the town of Gunnison, the river begins to swell into the expanse of Blue Mesa Reservoir, a 36-mile-long (58 km) reservoir formed by Blue Mesa Dam, where it receives the Lake Fork of the Gunnison.