Tempe Town Lake
Encyclopedia
Tempe Town Lake is a reservoir
that occupies a portion of the currently dry riverbed of the Salt River
as it passes through the city of Tempe, Arizona
just north of Tempe Butte
.
On July 20, 2010, a portion of the west side of the dam that contained the water in the lake collapsed sending a flood of water into the Salt River bed which drained the lake.
and ASU recreation ensued and programming began. A groundbreaking ceremony near Tempe Beach Park marked the beginning of construction of the river channelization. The Rio Salado Master Plan showed a Town Lake concept with a continuous body of water between the north and south shores. Previously, the lake concept included islands; this concept was modified to meet the flow capacity of the river channel.
In 1995, the City added more staff to the team dedicated to the Rio Salado project and began construction of a mile long bike path along the south bank of the river. The path features public art at a number of spots along the way. The city began the Town Lake design report and completed another financial capacity study and landscape designs for portions of the parks. The next year, the consultant completed construction drawings for the Tempe Town Lake and the City designated 800 acres (3.2 km²) of area including the lake as Rio Salado Park. On March 19, 1997, requests for bids were sent out for the lake construction. The city awarded contacts for construction of the lake on June 12, and groundbreaking ceremonies were held on August 8.
Water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) started flowing into Tempe Town Lake on June 2, 1999, and by July 14, the lake was declared full. On November 7, Tempe Town Lake was opened to the public.
The historic baseball field plays host to baseball and softball games, as well as carnival games.
In 2002, the $1.3 million Splash Playground was opened in Tempe Beach Park. The 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) playground is both a way for kids to have fun in the water, and to learn about the water cycle
. Only about two inches of water will pool in parts of the park. The water is kept flowing across the playground, where it is eventually collected, filtered, cleaned, and re-circulated in a state-of-the-art system.
The amphitheater accommodates 5,000 people for concerts or outdoor trade shows.
Rio Salado Cruise Company operates its boat concession out of the beach park.
The Arizona State University Sailing Club, the Arizona Yacht Club and private boat owners sail out of the Tempe Town Lake Marina on the north bank of the lake.
Several rowing clubs practice and race on the lake, including Rio Salado Rowing Club, Arizona State University's Rowing Club, Tempe Town Lake Rowing, Tempe Junior Crew as well as many private owners. All boat owners must have a license as well.
The Arizona Dragon Boat Association, the Gila Dragons Dragon Boat Team and several Outrigger Clubs all have their home on the lake.
Annual events at Tempe Beach Park include the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl New Year's Eve Block Party, Circle K
Tempe Music Festival, Oktoberfest
, APS Fantasy of Lights, Fourth of July fireworks show, and AVP Pro Beach Volleyball
(now held in Glendale as of 2007).
The lake is used for the Tempe International Triathlon each May. See http://www.tucsonracing.com/
Tempe also hosts the Ironman Arizona Triathlon in November of each year. The 2.4 miles (3.9 km) swim portion of the race is held in Tempe town lake. See http://www.ironmanarizona.com
In addition, several regattas for rowing, sailing, and kayaking occur throughout the year. There is also the annual Rowers Triathlon, which consists of a 4000 meter erg piece, body circuits, and a five kilometer run.
Tempe Beach Park also hosted the Rockstar Uproar Festival on September 19, 2010. The festival drew a huge crowd filling the park with thousands of rock fans.
The lake was completed in 1999, using inflatable rubber barriers in the riverbed to confine water within its boundaries. It is nearly 3 km (2 mi) long, with an average surface area of 910,000 m² (224 acres), and an average depth of 4 m (13 ft), for a total average volume of 3590000 cubic metre. The maximum depth of the lake reaches 6 m (19 ft). The lake was initially filled with 3800000 cubic metre of water purchased from the Central Arizona Project. Evaporation and other water losses of 6400 cubic metre per day are compensated through additional purchase of CAP water, exchanges of reclaimed water, and long-term storage credits. Seepage losses are virtually nil, thanks to a system that recaptures virtually all seepage and pumps it back into the lake.
A park surrounds the area, along with office and residential highrises such as SouthBank, Grigio, Northshore Condominiums, Onyx Tower Condominiums, Rio West, Plaza Del Rio and Hayden Ferry Lakeside. The lake is used for practice by the ASU
rowing team. The lake has fishing, boating (by permit and by day rental which can be purchased at the Rio Salado Operations Center), and an excursion cruise, the “Rio Salado Cruise.” The lake also hosts a small marina on the northern shore. Tempe Beach Park is home to several major annual events including Tempe's yearly Independence Day
Celebrations and the Tempe Music Festival.
Tempe Town Lake is stocked with rainbow trout
on a monthly basis from November to February. Other species found in the lake naturally include largemouth bass
, yellow bass
, tilapia
, carp
, channel catfish
and bluegill
. An Arizona fishing license is required to fish in the lake. All motor vehicles are required to have a four stroke marine engine.
Each section of dam, or bladder, is about 240 feet (73.2 m) long, weighs 40 tons and is more than one inch thick. At times, a small amount of water can be seen flowing over the top of the west dams, creating a 19 feet (5.8 m) waterfall. This water can be recaptured by a recirculation system and pumped back into the lake.
The east dams are five feet high and sit on a two-foot concrete base. The west dams are 16 feet (4.9 m) high and sit on a three-foot base.
Tempe's dams are computer controlled and maintain air pressure of 6 pound per square inches (41.4 kPa). They can be controlled individually to within 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) and can be lowered incrementally depending on the flood conditions. Due to rapid deterioration of the west dams, the City of Tempe has worked out an agreement to replace them with manufacturer Bridgestone. Replacement costs are expected to reach $2.5 million USD. Work was scheduled to begin in spring 2010 in conjunction with a new $6.3 million USD pedestrian bridge that will cross over the tops of the west dams. However due to the high amount of rainfall in the winter and upstream runoff in the spring, the project had been postponed until July.
City officials indicated that they expected to reopen the lake by November 1, and that if the lake is reopened by then, that the dam collapse's economic impact will be "fairly light." The city indicated that replacements for two of the remaining bladders have already been delivered, and will be installed as soon as possible. The replacement for the failed section was delivered to Tempe by the middle of August. The city built a cofferdam
to allow the lake to be refilled while the northernmost bladder was replaced at a later date.
Some of the fish that had temporarily survived the dam break and were left stranded in shallow pools of water in the lake bed were scooped out and fed to a captive 6 feet (1.8 m) alligator in the parking lot of the Tempe Center for the Arts
on Friday, July 23. Most of the fish removed from the lake were to be fed to other denizens of the Phoenix Herpetological Society, where the alligator has lived since 2005.
On October 8, 2010, SRP
crews began refilling the lake. Water used to refill the lake was brought down the Salt River reservoir system from Roosevelt Lake
east of the Phoenix area. Tempe officials elected to use a portion their allotment of lake water since it was filled to capacity at the time. This method saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars versus the alternative of filling it with Colorado River water from the CAP. After about two and a half weeks, the lake was reopened for normal water activities on October 26, 2010.
at Phoenix
is often dry or a trickle, with the river's flow being entirely diverted to agricultural and other uses upriver. The Tempe Town Lake uses artificial structures and the natural riverbed to form a lake. In periods of high runoff, the inflatable dams confining the lake must be lowered to permit the passage of the Salt River itself. The lake has released water on multiple occasions as the river levels rise normally due to heavy rain or winter snow run off.
For the first time since its construction the 1.5-meter (5 ft) eastern dam was lowered, on December 31, 2004. Heavy rains in the Salt River watershed required the release of 570 m³/s (20,000 ft³/s) of runoff into the Salt River. The dams are designed to handle a maximum flow of 1800 m³/s (65,000 ft³/s).
Additional releases occurred in February 2005, January 2008 and February 2009.
Light Rail project began building this bridge (designed by T.Y. Lin International) over Tempe Town Lake, starting in the first quarter of 2005. The lighting ceremony for the bridge, which was the celebration for the completion of the most important parts of the bridge, was held on Saturday, December 9, 2006 during the APS Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade. The project has been completed as of December 27, 2008, when the light rail line was officially opened to the public. The LED light display that occur each time a train passes overhead at dark cast varying colors onto the lake, increasing the aesthetic quality of the bridge at night.
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...
that occupies a portion of the currently dry riverbed of the Salt River
Salt River (Arizona)
The Salt River is a stream in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the largest tributary of the Gila River. The river is about long. Its drainage basin is about large. The longest of the Salt River's many tributaries is the Verde River...
as it passes through the city of Tempe, Arizona
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2010 population of 161,719. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale...
just north of Tempe Butte
Tempe Butte
Tempe Butte is the official name of an andesite butte of volcanic origin, located partially on Arizona State University's Tempe campus in Tempe, Arizona. It is often referred to by locals as A Mountain, after the gold-painted letter 'A' near the top...
.
On July 20, 2010, a portion of the west side of the dam that contained the water in the lake collapsed sending a flood of water into the Salt River bed which drained the lake.
History
In March 1989, Tempe adopted the Rio Salado Master Plan which represented the culmination of more than 20 years of environmental land planning. Studies of water quality and usage, the Mill Avenue BridgesMill Avenue Bridges
The Mill Avenue Bridges consist of two bridges that cross the Salt River in Tempe, Arizona at the north end of the shopping district on Mill Avenue. The first bridge opened in August 1931 and the second bridge opened in 1994.-Original Span:...
and ASU recreation ensued and programming began. A groundbreaking ceremony near Tempe Beach Park marked the beginning of construction of the river channelization. The Rio Salado Master Plan showed a Town Lake concept with a continuous body of water between the north and south shores. Previously, the lake concept included islands; this concept was modified to meet the flow capacity of the river channel.
In 1995, the City added more staff to the team dedicated to the Rio Salado project and began construction of a mile long bike path along the south bank of the river. The path features public art at a number of spots along the way. The city began the Town Lake design report and completed another financial capacity study and landscape designs for portions of the parks. The next year, the consultant completed construction drawings for the Tempe Town Lake and the City designated 800 acres (3.2 km²) of area including the lake as Rio Salado Park. On March 19, 1997, requests for bids were sent out for the lake construction. The city awarded contacts for construction of the lake on June 12, and groundbreaking ceremonies were held on August 8.
Water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) started flowing into Tempe Town Lake on June 2, 1999, and by July 14, the lake was declared full. On November 7, Tempe Town Lake was opened to the public.
Tempe Beach Park
Originally built in 1931, Tempe Beach Park was completely renovated in 1999 as part of the construction of Town Lake. The park connects to the 5 miles (8 km) of paths for bicycling, jogging or in-line skating that circle Town Lake.Activities
In 2002, the $1.3 million Splash Playground was opened in Tempe Beach Park. The 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) playground is both a way for kids to have fun in the water, and to learn about the water cycle
Water cycle
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and solid at various places in the water cycle...
. Only about two inches of water will pool in parts of the park. The water is kept flowing across the playground, where it is eventually collected, filtered, cleaned, and re-circulated in a state-of-the-art system.
The amphitheater accommodates 5,000 people for concerts or outdoor trade shows.
Rio Salado Cruise Company operates its boat concession out of the beach park.
Several rowing clubs practice and race on the lake, including Rio Salado Rowing Club, Arizona State University's Rowing Club, Tempe Town Lake Rowing, Tempe Junior Crew as well as many private owners. All boat owners must have a license as well.
The Arizona Dragon Boat Association, the Gila Dragons Dragon Boat Team and several Outrigger Clubs all have their home on the lake.
Events
Circle K
Circle K is an international chain of convenience stores, founded in 1951, in El Paso, Texas, United States. It is owned and operated by the Canadian-based Alimentation Couche-Tard.-Overview:...
Tempe Music Festival, Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest, or Wiesn, is a 16–18 day beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and is the world's largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The...
, APS Fantasy of Lights, Fourth of July fireworks show, and AVP Pro Beach Volleyball
Association of Volleyball Professionals
The Association of Volleyball Professionals, or AVP, is a beach volleyball tour which takes place throughout the United States. The summer tour starts in April and continues almost every weekend until the end of October....
(now held in Glendale as of 2007).
The lake is used for the Tempe International Triathlon each May. See http://www.tucsonracing.com/
Tempe also hosts the Ironman Arizona Triathlon in November of each year. The 2.4 miles (3.9 km) swim portion of the race is held in Tempe town lake. See http://www.ironmanarizona.com
In addition, several regattas for rowing, sailing, and kayaking occur throughout the year. There is also the annual Rowers Triathlon, which consists of a 4000 meter erg piece, body circuits, and a five kilometer run.
Tempe Beach Park also hosted the Rockstar Uproar Festival on September 19, 2010. The festival drew a huge crowd filling the park with thousands of rock fans.
Description
A park surrounds the area, along with office and residential highrises such as SouthBank, Grigio, Northshore Condominiums, Onyx Tower Condominiums, Rio West, Plaza Del Rio and Hayden Ferry Lakeside. The lake is used for practice by the ASU
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
rowing team. The lake has fishing, boating (by permit and by day rental which can be purchased at the Rio Salado Operations Center), and an excursion cruise, the “Rio Salado Cruise.” The lake also hosts a small marina on the northern shore. Tempe Beach Park is home to several major annual events including Tempe's yearly Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
Celebrations and the Tempe Music Festival.
Fishing
Rainbow trout
The rainbow trout is a species of salmonid native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a sea run rainbow trout usually returning to freshwater to spawn after 2 to 3 years at sea. In other words, rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species....
on a monthly basis from November to February. Other species found in the lake naturally include largemouth bass
Largemouth bass
The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...
, yellow bass
Yellow bass
The yellow bass or barfish, Morone mississippiensis, is a freshwater fish native to the south and midwestern United States. Though sometimes confused with white bass or striped bass, it is distinguished by its yellow belly and the broken pattern in its lowermost stripes...
, tilapia
Tilapia
Tilapia , is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the tilapiine cichlid tribe. Tilapia inhabit a variety of fresh water habitats, including shallow streams, ponds, rivers and lakes. Historically, they have been of major importance in artisan fishing in Africa and the...
, carp
Carp
Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...
, channel catfish
Channel catfish
Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States they are the most fished catfish species with approximately 8...
and bluegill
Bluegill
The Bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as bream, brim, or copper nose. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes.-Range and distribution:...
. An Arizona fishing license is required to fish in the lake. All motor vehicles are required to have a four stroke marine engine.
Description
The dams are made up of three main elements:- Strong, flexible, rubber coated fabric tube which is fixed securely to a concrete base slab by clamping bars and anchor bolts
- An operating system which controls inflation and deflation of the tube
- An automatic safety device which ensures tube deflation in flood situations.
Each section of dam, or bladder, is about 240 feet (73.2 m) long, weighs 40 tons and is more than one inch thick. At times, a small amount of water can be seen flowing over the top of the west dams, creating a 19 feet (5.8 m) waterfall. This water can be recaptured by a recirculation system and pumped back into the lake.
The east dams are five feet high and sit on a two-foot concrete base. The west dams are 16 feet (4.9 m) high and sit on a three-foot base.
Tempe's dams are computer controlled and maintain air pressure of 6 pound per square inches (41.4 kPa). They can be controlled individually to within 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) and can be lowered incrementally depending on the flood conditions. Due to rapid deterioration of the west dams, the City of Tempe has worked out an agreement to replace them with manufacturer Bridgestone. Replacement costs are expected to reach $2.5 million USD. Work was scheduled to begin in spring 2010 in conjunction with a new $6.3 million USD pedestrian bridge that will cross over the tops of the west dams. However due to the high amount of rainfall in the winter and upstream runoff in the spring, the project had been postponed until July.
Dam break
At approximately 9:45 pm MST on July 20, 2010, one section of the inflatable dam on the west end burst, thus releasing water up to 15000 ft3/s into the normally dry Salt River bed. The lake began draining immediately and by the next morning the lake had lost about three fourths of its normal water. The dam breach left some areas of the lake with three feet of water or less; the average lake depth is about 16 feet (4.9 m). Most of the 10,000 fish in the lake were swept downstream, but those that remained were expected to die within five days; fishing is not expected to resume until a year after the lake is refilled.City officials indicated that they expected to reopen the lake by November 1, and that if the lake is reopened by then, that the dam collapse's economic impact will be "fairly light." The city indicated that replacements for two of the remaining bladders have already been delivered, and will be installed as soon as possible. The replacement for the failed section was delivered to Tempe by the middle of August. The city built a cofferdam
Cofferdam
A cofferdam is a temporary enclosure built within, or in pairs across, a body of water and constructed to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out, creating a dry work environment for the major work to proceed...
to allow the lake to be refilled while the northernmost bladder was replaced at a later date.
Some of the fish that had temporarily survived the dam break and were left stranded in shallow pools of water in the lake bed were scooped out and fed to a captive 6 feet (1.8 m) alligator in the parking lot of the Tempe Center for the Arts
Tempe Center for the Arts
Tempe Center for the Arts , completed in August, 2007, with a grand opening on September 9, 2007, is a publicly owned performing and visual arts center in Tempe, Arizona.-About:...
on Friday, July 23. Most of the fish removed from the lake were to be fed to other denizens of the Phoenix Herpetological Society, where the alligator has lived since 2005.
On October 8, 2010, SRP
Salt River Project
The Salt River Project is the umbrella name for two separate entities: the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, an agency of the state of Arizona that serves as an electrical utility for the Phoenix metropolitan area, and the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, a...
crews began refilling the lake. Water used to refill the lake was brought down the Salt River reservoir system from Roosevelt Lake
Theodore Roosevelt Lake
Theodore Roosevelt Lake is a large reservoir formed by Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Arizona as part of the Salt River Project...
east of the Phoenix area. Tempe officials elected to use a portion their allotment of lake water since it was filled to capacity at the time. This method saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars versus the alternative of filling it with Colorado River water from the CAP. After about two and a half weeks, the lake was reopened for normal water activities on October 26, 2010.
Notable water releases
The riverbed of the Salt RiverSalt River (Arizona)
The Salt River is a stream in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the largest tributary of the Gila River. The river is about long. Its drainage basin is about large. The longest of the Salt River's many tributaries is the Verde River...
at Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
is often dry or a trickle, with the river's flow being entirely diverted to agricultural and other uses upriver. The Tempe Town Lake uses artificial structures and the natural riverbed to form a lake. In periods of high runoff, the inflatable dams confining the lake must be lowered to permit the passage of the Salt River itself. The lake has released water on multiple occasions as the river levels rise normally due to heavy rain or winter snow run off.
For the first time since its construction the 1.5-meter (5 ft) eastern dam was lowered, on December 31, 2004. Heavy rains in the Salt River watershed required the release of 570 m³/s (20,000 ft³/s) of runoff into the Salt River. The dams are designed to handle a maximum flow of 1800 m³/s (65,000 ft³/s).
Additional releases occurred in February 2005, January 2008 and February 2009.
Tempe Town Lake Bridge
The Valley MetroValley Metro (Phoenix)
Valley Metro is the unified public brand of the regional transit system in and around the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area, responsible for public transit.-About Valley Metro:...
Light Rail project began building this bridge (designed by T.Y. Lin International) over Tempe Town Lake, starting in the first quarter of 2005. The lighting ceremony for the bridge, which was the celebration for the completion of the most important parts of the bridge, was held on Saturday, December 9, 2006 during the APS Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade. The project has been completed as of December 27, 2008, when the light rail line was officially opened to the public. The LED light display that occur each time a train passes overhead at dark cast varying colors onto the lake, increasing the aesthetic quality of the bridge at night.
National
- James C. Howland Awards for Urban Enrichment, Gold winner
- National League of Cities (2003)
- The American Public Works Association Structures Project of the Year
- (City of Tempe, CH2M Hill, Martin Eby Construction Co.; Ogden Remediation Services Co.; Geo-Con, Inc.; Ames Construction, Inc.; Bridgestone Engineered Products, Co.) (200)
- The United States Conference of Mayors Outstanding Achievement Award in the Public/Private Partnership Award Program (Joint submission with CH2M Hill) (2000)
- Joint Center for Sustainable Communities Award
- Tempe Town Lake (Joint submission with the Flood Control District of Maricopa County) (1999)
- American Planning Association Economic Development Planning Award
- Tempe Rio Salado Project (1997)
State
- Arizona Planning Association
- Master Plan/Project Award (2000)
- Arizona Parks and Recreation Association
- Outstanding Facility Award (2000)
- Arizona Parks and Recreation Association
- Partnership Award - with the Flood Control District of Maricopa County for the promotion of recreation in Arizona (1999)
- Arizona Consulting Engineers Association
- Outstanding Award (with CH2M Hill) (1999)
- Arizona Community Tree Council
- Outstanding Efforts to Promote Planning, Planting, and Maintenance of Trees (1998)