Amistad Dam
Amistad Dam
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| Country | United States / Mexico |
|---|---|
| Location | Val Verde County, Texas / Acuña Municipality, Coahuila |
| Coordinates | 29°27′01″N 101°03′28″W / 29.45028°N 101.05778°WCoordinates: 29°27′01″N 101°03′28″W / 29.45028°N 101.05778°W |
| Status | In use |
| Construction began | 1963 |
| Opening date | 1969 |
| Construction cost | US$125 million ($808 million in 2014) |
| Owner(s) | International Boundary and Water Commission |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Type of dam | Earthfill |
| Impounds | Rio Grande |
| Height | 254 ft (77 m) |
| Length | 32,022 ft (9,760 m) |
| Dam volume | 17,055,000 cu yd (13,039,000 m3) |
| Spillway type | Ogee crest, 16 tainter gates |
| Spillway capacity | 1,507,000 cu ft/s (42,700 m3/s) |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Amistad Reservoir |
| Total capacity | 5,658,600 acre·ft (6.9798 km3) |
| Surface area | 64,900 acres (26,300 ha) |
| Power station | |
| Hydraulic head | 234 ft (71 m) |
| Turbines | 4x Francis |
| Installed capacity | 132 MW |
Amistad Dam (Spanish: Presa la Amistad) is a major embankment dam across the Rio Grande between Texas, United States and Coahuila, Mexico. Built to provide irrigation water storage, flood control, and hydropower generation, it is the largest dam along the international boundary reach of the Rio Grande. The dam is over 6 miles (9.7 km) long, lies mostly on the Mexican side of the border and forms Amistad Reservoir. It supplies water for irrigation in the Rio Grande Valley, 574 miles (924 km) upstream of the Rio Grande's mouth on the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville, Texas/Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The dam is owned and operated by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), and also facilitates the Amistad Dam Port of Entry. Amistad is derived from the Spanish word for "friendship", representing the two nations' cooperation on the dam.
Because of the Rio Grande's frequent floods and droughts, the sharing of its water between the US and Mexico has been a contentious issue since the 1800s. The 1906 Treaty for Equitable Distribution of the Waters of the Rio Grande enabled the construction of Elephant Butte Dam, the first major Rio Grande dam, in New Mexico. While this benefited water users along the middle Rio Grande it did little to help the lower Rio Grande Valley, where water flows remained uncontrolled. The 1944 Treaty relating to the utilization of waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande authorized the IBWC to build dams on the uncontrolled border segment of the Rio Grande. The first dam to be completed under the treaty was Falcon Dam in 1953.
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