page_title: Cochiti Dam
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Cochiti Dam / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: The shoreline of Cochiti Lake behind Cochiti Dam on the Rio Grande in Sandoval County, New Mexico, USA. Coordinates: 35°37′33.52″N 106°19′28.75″W﻿ / ﻿35.6259778°N 106.3246528°W
context_page_description: The Cochiti Dam is an earthen fill dam located on the Rio Grande in Sandoval County, New Mexico, approximately 50 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. By volume of material, it is the 23rd largest dam in the world at 62,849,000 yd³ of material, one of the ten largest such dams in the United States, and the eleventh largest such dam in the world. Cochiti Dam is one of the four United States Army Corps of Engineers projects for flood and sediment control on the Rio Grande system, operating in conjunction with Abiquiu Dam, Galisteo Dam and Jemez Canyon Dam.
context_section_description: Cochiti Dam is primarily a flood control dam built to ameliorate the effects of heavy runoff. The dam and the resultant lake also had the secondary purposes of creating recreational and wildlife habitat resources. The outlet works of the dam have an outflow capacity of 14,790 feet³/s (418.8 m³/s).
  Cochiti Dam is operated to bypass all inflow to the lake to the extent that downstream channel conditions are capable of safely bypassing the flow. Flood-control operations are initiated when inflow to the lake is in excess of the downstream channel capacity. Stored floodwaters are released when downstream channel conditions permit, all in accordance with the provisions of Public Law 86-645 and the Rio Grande Compact.
  Cochiti Dam marks the beginning of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD), Cochiti Division. It controls runoff water from an 11,695 square miles (30,290 km²) drainage area.
caption: A view of the shoreline of Cochiti Lake, impounded by Cochiti Dam
exif: {}