A few bald eagles inhabit the area as well. Falcons, mountain bluebirds, quail, dove, ducks, and geese are plentiful. Piñon, juniper, mesquite, and yucca cover the hillslopes and mesas surrounding the lake, and various wild flowers and cacti, including cholla and prickly pear, are common. Ute Lake State Park ranges in elevation from 3,700 to 3,900 ft above sea level and occupies 1,480 acres of land and 4,078 acres of water (surface). It was the first dam in the United States to use soil-cement protection on the slopes of the dam instead of riprap (Graham, 1985). The dam discharges on the north side of the river, south of the spillway, and has a discharge capacity of 275 ft 3/sec. A dike 2,860 ft long extends north from the spillway. Today, the lake has a reservoir capacity of 272,000 acre-ft of water and sediment. Ute Dam is a zoned earth-filled dam that is 148 ft high and 2,050 ft long. Each of the 14 cycles has a crest length of 240 ft and is 2–5 ft thick. It is 840 ft wide, 30 ft high, and 117 ft deep. Construction of the spillway required 27,000 cu yds of concrete reinforced by 7.4 million pounds of steel. The new Labyrinth Weir Spillway is a repetition of triangular shapes that expanded the length of the flood crest and increased the discharge capacity. This 14-cycle spillway increased the height of the lake by 27 ft without using expensive flood gates on the existing Ogee Weir Spillway. 2) by raising the dam and building the largest Labyrinth Weir Spillway in the United States, north of the dam. Bureau of Reclamation increased the capacity of Ute Lake ( Fig. The original dam was built in 1963 without any Federal funds by the New Mexico Interstate Streams Commission to store water from the Canadian River and Ute Creek for use in New Mexico (Young, 1984).
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