Public Reminder: Canyon Lake Will Close Sept. 8; Safety Inspections and Maintenance Begin Sept. 16
SRP and the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) will lower the water level of Canyon Lake for approximately 16 weeks starting Sept. 16 for critical dam safety inspections and maintenance. Tonto National Forest will close the lake on Sept. 8, including all boat ramps and access points, to prepare for the drawdown. The lake will remain closed for the duration of the project to ensure public safety.
SRP and Reclamation perform these inspections and maintenance projects every 20 years to ensure dam safety and water reliability for 2.5 million Valley residents. Throughout the project no water will be wasted. Water drawn from Canyon Lake will be used to satisfy normal deliveries to SRP water customers. In addition, water will continue to be stored in other reservoirs with no interruption in water delivery.
While maintenance is regularly performed on the dams, some critical equipment is located underwater, which makes it inaccessible without lowering the lake level. The work will focus on the normally submerged portions of Mormon Flat and Horse Mesa dams, as well as the river channel downstream of Horse Mesa Dam.
The drawdown project has several important benefits, including:
- Supporting operational safety of the dams for water storage and flood control.
- Ensuring water reliability for more than 2.5 million Valley residents.
- Providing an opportunity for SRP and other agencies and businesses to perform any necessary maintenance work and repairs to their Canyon Lake facilities.
It will take approximately four weeks to lower the water level by 54 feet; approximately eight weeks to complete the inspection and maintenance work; and approximately four weeks to fill the lake back to the normal level using water from upstream reservoirs.
Canyon Lake has over 57,000 acre-feet of water storage capacity – enough to provide water for about 173,000 Arizona families for a year. SRP began building dams, creating reservoirs and managing the surface water infrastructure more than 120 years ago. SRP is committed to maintaining adequate water supplies for long-term future use.
To learn more about the project, visit the Canyon Lake Drawdown webpage.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving about 1.2 million customers. SRP provides water to about 2.5 million Valley residents, delivering 260 billion gallons of water (800,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, irrigation laterals, and 131 miles of canals.