USGS photo, circa 1925. Drilling crew examining bedrock at constricted Boulder Canyon. Note high water scour line 80 feet above low water level.
Floods
"Reservoir management is how to mitigate a flood, not a spillway."
Paraphrasing a report authored by Elwood Mead, Commissioner of Reclamation
"Do what we will, the Colorado will one day find an unimpeded way to the sea."
Donald Worster
FLOODING: studies and observations about the frequency and magnitude of paleo and historic regional floods (snow melts, atmospheric rivers and cloudbursts), and the catastrophic impact to the engineered hydraulic works of the Colorado River Basin that is inevitable as flood control capacities are compromised by sediment fill in reservoirs and the ageing of infrasructure.