A section of the Tempe Town Lake Dam bust this evening and left city officials scrambling for answers. Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman was on the scene shortly after hearing the news.
According to witness accounts, collapse of a section of the dam sounded like a huge explosion. Warning sirens filled the air as thousands of gallons of water from the lake gushed downstream.
Shortly after 11:00pm I spoke with Michael Monti of Monti’s La Casa Vieja and to Paul Marquardt from the Chuck Box restaurant and both were on the scene. We were told by reliable sources that a replacement section for the Tempe Town Lake Dam is already in town. In fact, we were told that all four sections of the dam were due to be replaced by September of this year. Hopefully, the new section of the Tempe Town lake Dam can be replaced very soon. “Tempe just isn’t Tempe without this lake” said Monti citing some of the huge events and crowds of people that flock to the lake many times per year.
Below are some photos taken by Eddie Goitia of Monti’s La casa Vieja. As soon as the news hit, Michael and Eddie drove from their Tempe homes to see first hand what was happening across from their restaurant. People on the scene wondered if the lake will be nothing more than a dry riverbed but I was told by people “in the know” that it would be unlikely. Time will tell, hopefully we will have more information soon as to what the next steps are in fixing the broken section of the dam.
Light rail riders should have a great view of the broken dam on Wednesday morning when the trains start running. Please feel free to add your photos to our Flickr group for others to share. We will add more pics to the Flickr group as the story progresses and hope that people will share their photos as well. Construction begins today on the fix, this will be a VERY interesting process over several months.
We will add news updates here of some of the latest Tempe Town lake dam updates: The City of Tempe also has an update page set up for Dam Replacement Updates. Take a look!
News and photo update of Tempe Town Lake dam break from Phoenix New Times:
East Valley Tribune update on Dam break:
abc 15 update on dam break:
AP article from Yahoo news talks about Tempe Town Lake dam bursting:
City of Tempe and Bridgestone trade blame over dam collapse:
Tempe Town Lake: dam burst before it could be replaced.
Tempe Town Lake surveillance video shows dam break:
Can a smelly lake be good for business?
Alligator eats fish from Tempe Town Lake:
The sections were already in town? That’s great, but wish they had been installed. Nice job on this.
I need to listen to the Mayor’s response again but I thing they were still waiting on a section. The work was actually scheduled for TODAY.
I guess we can be thankful there was not a burst while people were working on the dam. I have a video from the Mayor’s response today and will try to post this evening.
Thanks Tyler.
So who is going to pay for the repairs? Who is going to pay to refill the lake? Will there be an environmental penalty for negligence on the part of Tempe? My understanding is that the parts were supposed to be replaced in 2008. We live in a desert. It’s no minor deal that this amount of water was wasted.
I don’t have all of these answers but I believe Bridgestone will be paying for the sections that need to be replaced. I will get the Mayor’s response posted here this evening which might answer a few of your questions. I’ll see if I can get someone with more info to answer these very valid points.
I don’t believe they were “supposed to be replaced in 2008.”
Thanks Derek.
I live in the U.K and am not familiar with the area but that sounds like it must have been quite a frightening experience and I hope no-one was hurt.