Government Highline Canal

The functional Government High Line Canal, also known as the Grand Valley Project, runs along the settled northern edge of the Grand Valley near Grand Junction, Colorado. The canal was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and is owned by the federal government, through authorization of the 1902 Reclamation Act. The Bureau of Reclamation is the branch of the federal government charged with constructing large irrigation projects, like dams and canals, that made western settlement possible. The Government Highline Canal was started in 1902 and completed in 1917, after many delays caused by private landowners whose land needed to be condemned to make the project possible. The Canal is 55 miles long and carries 1,675 second feet (s/f) of water. The project consists of a single, 14 foot high, concrete diversion weir on the Colorado River with a movable crest that provides water to four canals that stretch over 90 miles through the region. In 1903, a Grand Junction group proposed that the project be constructed by a private party using private financing, but after several years it became apparent that private construction would not proceed. In 1909, a U.S. Army Board of Engineers met and determined the project was feasible, and the U.S. Government allocated $1.5 million - equivalent to over $38 million today - to construct the Highline Canal system and its bank maintenance roads.

Canal data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).