The American Canal is an
irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface ...
in the Upper Rio Grande Valley near
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
. The canal acquires water from the
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...
from the
American Diversion Dam at the
Texas–New Mexico–Mexico border, northwest of downtown El Paso.
The canal supplies the majority of the raw water to El Paso’s Johnathan-Roger Water Treatment Plant. It also mitigates flooding in south El Paso neighborhoods.
[ The canal travels along the Rio Grande for where it flows into the Franklin Canal and the rest of the canal network. Construction of the canal dates back to 1938.]
See also
* Texas Irrigation Canals
Texas has many irrigation canals with the majority of large canal networks in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Rio Grande Valley and the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast, though smaller systems are located throughout the state. Canals provid ...
* Franklin Canal (Texas)
The Franklin Canal is an irrigation canal in the Upper Rio Grande Valley near El Paso, Texas. The canal acquires water from the Rio Grande via the American Canal. The canal is long with a capacity of .
The Franklin Irrigation Company comple ...
* Riverside Canal
References
{{Coord, 31.7724, -106.5153, type:river_region:US-TX, display=title
Canals in Texas
Irrigation canals
Transportation buildings and structures in El Paso County, Texas