The Colorado river and Virgin River is a very muddy river, so what happens to the silt behind the dams near the muddy portions especially like Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam? Do they have to clear out the sand every once in a while? Or will it eventually built up and clog the intakes?
Also, then this raises another question, because the lakes are at low water levels all the time now in permanent drought, could we purposefully allow for the sand to built up to very high so that we maintain high water levels, and not impact the electricity productions?
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It sits at the bottom and builds up. They periodically release a bunch of the water at once so it clears out.
Silt builds up behind all dams. I don’t know how much they try to clean it out, but dams basically have a “lifespan” based on how long it takes for the silt to get too high.
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