Thursday, January 13, 2011 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
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Rincon Valley Main Canal, Percha Dam, Arrey NM, April 26, 2008
No Percha Dam, no onions (like over the canal)
No pecans. No cotton. No chili. No whatever. Not in the Rincon Valley. A little about Percha Dam swiped from the US Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Reclamation, Cultural Resources Program website:
PERCHA DIVERSION DAM
- 2 miles northeast of Arrey
- National Register 4/06/1979
Percha Diversion Dam is an integral feature of the widespread Rio Grande Project, an early Bureau of Reclamation irrigation project that was authorized in 1905. Construction of the project facilities resulted in the delivery of a predictable and dependable water supply to farmers in the Rio Grande Valley in south-central New Mexico and west Texas. Located two miles downstream from Caballo Dam on the Rio Grande River, Percha Dam is a concrete ogee weir structure with embankment wings. It was constructed between 1916 and 1918. The dam diverts water into the Rincon Valley Main Canal, which provides water to over 16,000 acres of land in the Rincon Valley. Individually listed in the National Register, Percha Dam is also included as a contributing feature of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District National Register District.
Night camp
Site 23 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Percha Dam State Park website
- Locate Percha Dam State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather in Arrey NM
Disaster and the Failure of Authority
Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.
The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005