Bye Bye Tempe Town Lake (budget, place, flooding)

[kdog]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Those rubber dams are made from recycled tires.

Maybe they used some of those Firestones that had the recall.

[43north87west]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Sailing and crew are not entertainment worthy?

Maybe I didn't do a good job of making my point. I think Tempe Town Lake is a great feature. Sailing and crew are good sports, at least they are entertaining to me. It's important to my point to mention that I rowed #4 in a coxed 4 and #8 for several seasons. I was a competitive swimmer, grew up at a yacht club, and was an adult sailing instructor for 14 years. I really like both sailing and crew, both of which are viable sports on a lake the size of Tempe Town Lake. The lake is one of the things I always show people who are considering moving to the valley. As insignificant as it seems, when people visit from back east, they are almost without exception, pleasantly surprised to see a significant body of water--with boats.

I simply don't think that the creation of Tempe Town Lake is related to the proliferation of chain restaurants or any other consumer-driven retail, which have grown equally quickly in areas that don't have lakes.

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Phoenix has BOTH chain stores and unique original restaurants. The problem is we have uneducated forum members who falsely claim we only have chains when that is far from the truth. They don't truly know the Valley and base their comments on what they visibly see driving home on the 101 or some other major street.

I live in downtown Phoenix and have virtually endless unique restaurants within a short walk, very short drive, or a quick light rail ride. To be honest, I have to drive to the suburbs to find most of the chains (apart from fast food, which I eat at most once a year).

Anyone who doesn't realize that Phoenix has many unique destinations is simply not bothering to look. Most of the chains have grown everywhere across the United States, and are not unique to Phoenix (or Tempe, in the case of this thread).

[observer53]

Originally Posted by TVofM

How are the king's new invisible clothes working out? "To allow quick dismantling if needed"??

Do they want a lake there or not? If so, bite the bullet and build a real dam. Or don't have a lake.

This rubber dam concept is B S. People have been sold a "bill of goods" as they say in the south.

The dams needed to be able to be lowered in the event of one of our really large flood seasons requiring very large water releases from the upstream lakes. Having seen the Salt running through Tempe at 200,000 cfs back in the late 70's, early 80's, trust me, you want the water to be able to flow through unimpeded in that event.

[TVofM]

Kind of like the spillway on REAL dams? Dams that won't rot or blowup in 10 to 20 years?

Yes, those have the function needed to deal with water releases.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by TVofM

Kind of like the spillway on REAL dams? Dams that won't rot or blowup in 10 to 20 years?

Yes, those have the function needed to deal with water releases.

That's different than the situation here. You either don't live here yet, or haven't lived here nearly long enough to know the whole history.

[TVofM]

I don't live in Arizona, but would consider moving there eventually. I've read about this lake (starting with the proposal for it in 1989) and still feel that if this rubber tube idea was a good one, you would see lots of them. And you don't. It's a novel idea and going by what happened the other night, a failure.

[LocoAZnative]

Originally Posted by TVofM

I don't live in Arizona, but would consider moving there eventually. I've read about this lake (starting with the proposal for it in 1989) and still feel that if this rubber tube idea was a good one, you would see lots of them. And you don't. It's a novel idea and going by what happened the other night, a failure.

I was reading that there a over 200 such dams around the world. So the concept isn't unique to Tempe. You are the typical outsider looking in don't judge something you now nothing about.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by TVofM

Kind of like the spillway on REAL dams? Dams that won't rot or blowup in 10 to 20 years?

Yes, those have the function needed to deal with water releases.

You do not appreciate the engineering challenges and constraints of building this lake. Alternatives were evaluated. The inflatable dam was and remains a sound, reasonable, and cost-effective approach. Contrary to your notion of real dams, thousands of rubber dams are in use in the US and around the world. They are well-suited for use in small impoundments like TTL.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by LocoAZnative

I was reading that there a over 200 such dams around the world. So the concept isn't unique to Tempe. You are the typical outsider looking in don't judge something you now nothing about.

I think there are many more than that if you count the ones in use for irrigation diversion and small scale flood control projects.

The tallest one is the Netherlands - the Ramspol dam (at least it was the largest a few years ago). It is around 25 feet high give or take. The longest one is the the US, in Pennsylvania. It is the Adam T. Bower dam on the Susquehanna River. Maybe the most famous rubber dams are in the water supply system for Hong Kong. These have been in use for decades.

[Ritchie_az]

I read yesterday (couldn't find the article today) that Tempe is considering a different type of dam, they just don't have the budget for it right now. So once the replacement rubber dam wears, it's likely that a whole different type of dam will be built to replace it.