We've visited the Theodore Roosevelt Lake (a reservoir) east of Phoenix, 5 times and stayed at Bureau of Reclamation campgrounds 3 of those. This lake provides water for irrigation and, with recent dam height, increased flood control.
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It's always piqued our interest the huge variation in the lake levels. On our first visit in 2003, the lake was at 14% capacity and a ranger told us if it got down to 2% if will be at the original Salt River bed, that had been covered since the first dam was built in 1903-1911. Wow! Our astonishment was depicted in our log at that time, mostly because they had just finished (in 1996) making the dam 77 feet TALLER – to be able to hold more water. Huh??
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That expansion cost $424 million. Plus, in anticipation of a higher water level, had relocated 20+ miles of roadway including 23 new concrete bridges and a 1,080-foot long steel arch bridge. Another $24 million. Add a new Visitor Center for $2.3 million. We're talking big bucks here!
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The Forest Service then added another $42 million to replace "recreation facilities impacted" by the higher lake levels: 10 new campgrounds with paved roads, 1,515 individual paved campsites with 10' X 12' shade ramadas and picnic tables, at least 50 bathrooms with running water, 80 picnic sites, nine group campsites with 25 more campsites each (not included in the 1,515 earlier noted), and nine multi-lane concrete boat launche,s each with approx. 200 boat trailer parking spots.
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That's wonderful, except that during our first visit in 2003, the launches were 1/4 to 1/2 a mile from the water! And with no water access, no campers came either. In 2003, all the campgrounds except one were closed, and only one loop of that campground was open, and we were one of only ten campers in that loop! We were disheartened by the money spent to build all this and it wasn't being used.
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Well, time has moved on. Several of the launches were extended, and designated as "low-water launches". The lake (despite the earlier prediction) did come up. In 2004 it was at 30%; 2005, 90%; in 2009 and 2010 it was 100% and 99%. This year its back to 46%. Yahoo! This thing goes up and down like a yo-yo.
The current literature published by the bureau makes it sound like they always expected the variations to be this large. It's stated that the main reason for extending the height of the dam was to enable it to hold more water in reserve, and be able to limit the outflow to an amount the 3 downstream dams could safely handle. (The "old" dam did overflow in 1993, raising havoc downstream.) The "normal" water level, identified as the "conservation level" at the "new" dam is only 15 feet above what it was before, but the "full" level (the "Flood Surcharge Storage") is something over 67 feet higher. The volume of that flood storage is 1,180,202 more acre feet – 384.6 billion gallons.
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| White dots are campsite ramadas at 2 of the 9 loops at Windy Hill Campground |
But today here we sit with the lake at 46%. We see the bathtub ring around the lake from the times the lake was full. Only two of the ten campgrounds are open, and only three or four loops of each of them. Driving around the open loops there seems to be about 200 to 300 campers here, plus maybe 50 or so disbursed along the shorelines. The group campsite loops are closed.
Walking into some of the closed loops looks like they've never been opened. Sadly, the occupied sites are a long way from the 1515 sites built.
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As the crow flies, Roosevelt Lake is less than 40 miles from the Greater Phoenix area. But either of the only two paved roads to get here add another 40 miles to that trip. Perhaps, the 23-mile dirt Apache Trail road could be improved, many more folks would take advantage of the wonderful facilities now sitting here idle. Hmmm? How many dollars would that take??
