page_title: All-American Canal
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: All-American Canal / History
context_page_description: The All-American Canal is an 80-mile long aqueduct, located in southeastern California. It conveys water from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley and to nine cities. It is the Imperial Valley's only water source, and replaced the Alamo Canal, which was located mostly in Mexico. The Imperial Dam, about 30 miles northeast of Yuma, Arizona on the Colorado River, diverts water into the All-American Canal, which runs to just west of Calexico, California before its last branch heads mostly north into the Imperial Valley. Five smaller canals branching off the All American Canal move water into the Imperial Valley. These canal systems irrigate up to 630,000 acres of crop land and have made possible a greatly increased crop yield in this area, originally one of the driest on earth. It is the largest irrigation canal in the world, carrying a maximum of 26,155 cubic feet per second. Agricultural runoff from the All American Canal drains into the Salton Sea.
  The All American Canal runs parallel to the Mexico California border for several miles. With over 500 people having drowned in the canal since its completion, it has been called "the Most Dangerous Body of Water in the U.S."
context_section_description: The All-American Canal was authorized along with the Hoover Dam by the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act and built in the 1930s by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and Six Companies, Inc..  Its design and construction was supervised by the Bureau's then chief designing engineer, John L. Savage and was completed in 1942.
caption: Map showing the All-American Canal (yellow)
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