STEP 8 – The Dam on the Rio Grande

This Dam Goes Up and Down

A dam is a like a wall across a river. Some dams stop the water and a lake forms behind it. But we don’t want to stop the water. We want to pull some water from the river, so we can use it in town. Sometimes we only need a little river water. Sometimes we need more water. That is why our dam moves up and down. When we don’t need any river water, the dam is down and you cannot see it at all.

Fish need to swim in the river when the dam is up and when it is down. We built the fish a ditch so they can swim around the dam. We also have screens that keep fish out of the water we take from the river. It’s important to make sure we are not hurting wildlife when we take water from the river.

This is the dam
on the Rio Grande,
where machines cleaned the water,
that flowed through the Clean Drinking Water Plant,
that ran the pumps,
that filled the pipes,
attached to the faucet,
that filled the cup,
that held the water
that Jack drank.