Tempe Town Lake Mishap July, 2010

I'd never taken many pictures of Tempe Town Lake, because I knew other people would shoot it just fine. The only ones I had taken were to show the light rail line when it was new...

...or the Tempe Center for the Performing arts when IT was new...

...and it was sort of a backdrop for that photo-play I did last year with my friend, Ana; but not the most prominent feature in that one, either:

I remember as far back as high school in the '80's, reading in the New Times about plans to make the dry bed of the Salt River into a lake, with a sort of boardwalk area, water sports like rowing and fishing available, as well as shopping and dining. The idea always seemed too progressive for the voters, though, who kept shooting down bond proposals, one after the other. A funding method was finally approved in 1989, though, and the lake filled in July of 1999. Gradually, the area around Tempe Town Lake has become the focal point for city fetes such as fairs and holiday celebrations. A family can have a nice evening there for free, and it's a clean, casual, safe place in the city for just chilling out alone or with friends. There are boat and bicycle concessions along the shore, and the lake is stocked with fish.

Historically, the Salt River (or Rio Salado) had been a normally dry river bed that cut a broad swath through the south central portion of the valley and provided a natural boundary between Phoenix and Scottsdale on the north shore and Tempe and Mesa on the south. The only time it ever had water in it was on the infrequent occasions when water shed from snow and rain in north central Arizona would overwhelm the reservoirs further upstream. At those times, not only would the Salt have water, but it would often flood. Most bridges would wash out, save always the 1937 structure carrying Mill Avenue traffic, and its 1912 railroad counterpart, just a few hundred yards to its west.

With the exception of flooded periods, car traffic on the Mill Avenue bridge was north-bound only, and south-bound traffic actually took two paved lanes down into the river bottom and back up the other side. If unobserved, semi-athletic people could climb up under the bridge from the middle of the river bed and spend unmolested time in the archways just below the road surface. I did this on more than one occasion and became familiar with the clack-clack-clacking of the boards on the underside of the roadway as cars passed overhead. (I assume the boards must have formed the roadway floor during the bridge's construction phase and had since been loosened by decades of traffic and seismic vibration.)

Prior to the existence of the lake, walking out and dangling off of the train bridge was actually potentially lethal, because a careless move could easily result in a 25ft fall onto jagged rocks. In current times, the potential 9ft fall into a 16ft lake could almost be taken as sport. Even if you didn't know how to swim, you were probably out with a friend who did and could rescue you.

The state of affairs took a temporary but swift turn back toward the pre-lake days on July 20th, 2010, when the western dam of the lake failed, and most of the lake's approximately 1billion gallons of water made an abrupt exit downstream.

I was alerted by a friend on FaceBook that SOMETHING had happened, and I scooped up my camera bag and tripod and went to see what I could see. The path from where I could park a car, to my eventual perch about 100yrds downstream of the actual rupture was sufficiently strenuous and circuitous as to cause me to be slightly muddied and bloodied by the time I was finally able to get a shot. Although there was no signage saying I COULDN'T be in the area, the police were quickly erecting barricades all around, and policing (!) the area with both a patrol car driving along the river's northern pedestrian footpath, and helicopter. I was counting on eventually being kicked out, but wanted to delay that event as long as possible. Luckily for me, a portion of land adjoining the river bank has a fenced off area of construction, with a crane on it. I climbed the fence into this area and was able to wait unnoticed until the coast was briefly clear and then slide down the riverbank.

By then, an hour had passed since the initial flood and, although the bank was saturated to about the 6ft level, I was easily able to find a stable place to set up the camera. The current was lazy at this point, and didn't seem to be more than 2ft deep.

I could get a fair idea of what had happened with my naked eye; but it wasn't until I set the E-P1 to a long exposure that I could actually see any details.

The picture above, taken from the downstream river bank, shows the failed center section of the lake's western levee. More than an hour after the initial breach had sent the contents of the lake careening down the normally dry riverbed, water was still gushing through the opening with visible force.

The picture below is grainier, but I upped the iso to 6400 and was better able to capture the splashing water.

By the next evening, the dwindling pools were teaming with the remaining fish, all huddling together trying not to be noticed by the increasingly corpulent herons.

To anyone who grew up here, the dry(ish) river bed doesn't look so foreign or jarring.

Unfortunately the remaining fish won't be saved alive. Instead, there's a report today that they'll be saved freshly dead, and given to a local man who owns an alligator named "Tuesday." I can't make this stuff up.

The plan is to have all of the rubber bladders which comprise the western levee replaced, and for the lake to be full and operational (as it were) by November, 2010. Ironically, the refurbishment of the western levee had been scheduled to begin on July 21 - the day AFTER the big spill. The plan was for a temporary structure to be put in place during the work, which would then not require the lake to have been drained. Closed-circuit tv footage of the instant the dam burst showed a spontaneous rupture at the seem of one of the bladders; meaning no foul-play is suspected. It is sheer good luck that it didn't rupture a day later than it did. Had that happened, lives definitely could have been lost.

Although I've seen homeless people sleep basically right below the dam in the past, the authorities report having found no inadvertent victims.