Arkansas Valley Conduit: History and Progress

On August 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed into authorization the FryingpanArkansas (Fry-Ark) Act that allowed construction to begin upon one of our country’s largest water diversion projects: The Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, or “Fry-Ark.” Of the plentiful rivers flowing from the tops of the Rocky Mountains the two main rivers involved in this project are the Arkansas River, whose source basin lies in Colorado (in the Arkansas Valley) and flows both east and southeast through Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas; and the Fryingpan River, which runs east-west into the Roaring Fork River.

Diversion of the water from the western slopes across mountain passes required more than 20 years of construction to complete six storage dams, 17 diversion dams and structures, hundreds of miles of combined canals, conduits, tunnels, and transmission lines, two powerplants, switchyards and substations.