 |
|
Amistad National Recreation Area
|
|
This park at the confluence of the Pecos and Devils River and the Rio Grande has been a focus of SRC diving operations since 1976. Some of the early work on the National Reservoir Inundation Study was conducted here with the NPS team visiting the submerged remnants of Arenosa Rock Shelter and extracting information on the effects of reservoir construction on archeological sites. Material samples were also taken from submerged historic sites such as ranch houses and upriver dams that were drowned when the impounded rivers formed Lake Amistad. |
 |
|
|
This is also where SCRU, the predecessor of SRC conducted intense training workshops for NPS divers in the 1970s in which new techniques for underwater rescue and recovery were developed and taught. In 1982, SRC and park divers conducted a difficult body recovery operation in a submerged powerhouse of an older dam that had been inundated on the Devils arm of the lake. The first Department of the Interior Exemplary Act awards for Search and Rescue given to National Park Service personnel were awarded to three SRC and three park divers involved in that operation.
At the turn of the millennium, lake levels at Amistad were very low due to regional drought conditions that had persisted for years. Some of the sites that had originally been mapped by the team underwater are now high and dry.
|
|
|
|
References:
- Lenihan, Daniel J., 2002, Chapters 6 & 10 in Submerged: Adventure of Americas Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team. Newmarket Press, NY.
- Farabee, Butch, 2001, p.362 and elsewhere in Death Daring and Disaster: Search and Rescue in the National Parks, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, MD.
- Lenihan, Daniel J., 1981, The Final Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study (vols I & II) (Available via written or e-mail request)
- Lenihan, Daniel J. - Project Director, 1977, The Preliminary Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study. (Available via written or e-mail request)
|
 |
|
Related Links
Amistad National Recreation Area
|
|
|
|
