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Never-built reservoirs could have captured runoff Page 2 of2 . enough to serve one or two average households for a year. State and federal officials proposed building one of two major reservoirs on the Verde to capture more of the runoff and add flood control capacity. . Orme Dam would have been built at the confluence of the Salt and Verde rivers on the far east side of the Valley. The reservoir would have been one of the largest in the state and would have made unnecessary later renovations to Roosevelt Dam. But Orme also would have flooded more than 15,000 acres on the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation. Tribal leaders fought the dam, winning some public support and help from environmental groups. In 1977 the Carter administration ditched the proposal. . Cliff Dam was proposed to provide some of the storage lost with Orme Dam. Cliff Dam would have been built a few miles below Horseshoe Dam, farther upstream on the Verde than Orme. The reservoir would have held less water than Orme, but it probably would have been enough to avert this week's releases into the Salt River. Environmental groups mounted a strong campaign against the dam, and in 1987, the federal government abandoned that plan as well. The lack of storage on the Verde hasn't been an issue during the drought. Horseshoe Lake was empty for most of 2002, and neither it nor Bartlett has filled until this past week. Ester said the Verde River watershed, the high country area that funnels runoff into the river, is actually bigger than the Salt River watershed, but the two work differently. The Verde produces large amounts of water in a relatively short time, with rapid peaks. "It moves in fast, with huge peak flows, and overwhelms the capacity of the reservoirs," Ester said. Releasing the water into the Salt also forced the SRP to bulldoze the earthen berms at the Granite Reef Underground Storage Project, an area just below the Granite Reef Dam where water is regularly "banked" in aquifers beneath the riverbed. Still, some of the water flowing downstream will recharge aquifers, which means the flow isn't entirely lost, Ester said. What is lost is whatever water makes it to Painted Rock Dam outside Gila Bend. The dam is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a flood control project on the Gila River. Email this article Print this article Most popular pages Click to send Click to print Today I This Week http://www . azcentra1.comlphp-bin/ c1icktrack/print. php ?referer=http://www.azcentra1.coml...l/24/2005