Where'd that water come from?
January 6, 2012 10:28 PM Subscribe
Can you tell me about this large reservoir just east of Mexico City, apparently called Lago Nabor Carrillo?
While reading about pre-columbian American cultures I got off on a few tangents and ended up researching the history of Lake Texcoco and its subsequent drainage and all the problems that's caused (which is quite fascinating!) and ended up inspecting the salt-evaporation fields which now exist in the marshes where the lake used to be. Zooming around the satellite photos I also couldn't help but notice this rather striking large reservoir, a couple miles across, which seems to have some sort of gantries in it (seen in the larger version of the photo I linked) and even a little island in the middle. Can anyone tell me about this strange feature? Is it the main reservoir for Mexico City? Or is it a collection pond for the water drained by the Drenaje Profundo?
I don't speak Spanish and haven't been able to make much of the google translations of the sources I can find, but the spanish wikipedia article on Lake Texcoco suggests that this reservoir is part of an abandoned project to re-flood the lake basin? And that this project was cancelled/stalled because it directly competes with the project to drain the basin through the Drenaje Profundo? Buuuut... both of the sources cited there seem to be offline. This is all very interesting and I'd love it if someone could give some background!
[Bonus question: It sounds like this reservoir may be part of something called "Vuelta a la ciudad lacustre", or the Back to the Lake City movement, which I'd also love to hear more about.]
While reading about pre-columbian American cultures I got off on a few tangents and ended up researching the history of Lake Texcoco and its subsequent drainage and all the problems that's caused (which is quite fascinating!) and ended up inspecting the salt-evaporation fields which now exist in the marshes where the lake used to be. Zooming around the satellite photos I also couldn't help but notice this rather striking large reservoir, a couple miles across, which seems to have some sort of gantries in it (seen in the larger version of the photo I linked) and even a little island in the middle. Can anyone tell me about this strange feature? Is it the main reservoir for Mexico City? Or is it a collection pond for the water drained by the Drenaje Profundo?
I don't speak Spanish and haven't been able to make much of the google translations of the sources I can find, but the spanish wikipedia article on Lake Texcoco suggests that this reservoir is part of an abandoned project to re-flood the lake basin? And that this project was cancelled/stalled because it directly competes with the project to drain the basin through the Drenaje Profundo? Buuuut... both of the sources cited there seem to be offline. This is all very interesting and I'd love it if someone could give some background!
[Bonus question: It sounds like this reservoir may be part of something called "Vuelta a la ciudad lacustre", or the Back to the Lake City movement, which I'd also love to hear more about.]
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posted by dhartung at 9:05 AM on January 7, 2012 [1 favorite]