Big federal funding has now been secured for a series of facility upgrade and design projects at the site of the massive Elephant Butte Dam in southern New Mexico.
The largest item, as announced by the Department of the Interior, is seeing $3.2 million going to the stabilization and drainage improvements at one of the concession buildings within what is officially designated as the Elephant Butte Historic District.
The project will see the stabilization of the structure, drainage improvements, and the filling of a void caused by a broken irrigation line. The work, according to an Interior Department press release, is “necessary to prevent the structure from eventually collapsing into the Elephant Butte Reservoir.”
A smaller $888,000 will target the design and implementation of roof repairs at the dam’s operation control center for power generation.
A separate $625,000 is funding roof repairs at the Elephant Butte Historic District Fish Hatchery. The funding is specifically needed, notes the Interior Department, to mitigate “historic building deterioration,” and will also address “health and safety concerns.”
The Bureau of Reclamation completed work on the Elephant Butte Dam in 1916. A New Deal Project under the Civilian Conservation Corps saw the 1930s building of a boathouse, fish hatchery, and lakeside tourist cabins, designed in the Pueblo Revival Style.
The new funding for the Elephant Butte work is coming out of an $849 million investment in water project work just announced by the Interior Department, with funding going to 77 projects in eleven Western states.
December 13, 2024
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation
