Navajo Dam Road Closure Area
DURANGO, COLO. – New Mexico Highway 539 over Navajo Dam, located about 45 miles east of Farmington, New Mexico, will be closed to traffic from Wednesday, Feb. 28 to May 15.
Traffic detours will re-route traffic traveling between Navajo Dam and Navajo City north/south on New Mexico Highway 511 and east/west on US Highway 64 and may cause travel delays.
The road closure is necessary in order for maintenance crews to complete exploratory drilling to gather geotechnical data on Navajo Dam as part of Reclamation’s Safety of Dams Program. Under this program, Reclamation completes annual inspections and studies in order to identify potential issues that may lead to a corrective action. While all dams have seepage, there has been an increase in the amount of seepage at Navajo Dam over the years which has led to the need for the current exploratory work there.
Reclamation wants to target the source of the seepage and evaluate if new state-of-the-art practices that were unavailable at the time of construction will address the seepage issue.
“This exploratory drilling will give Reclamation the necessary information to learn how best to address the seepage issues at Navajo Dam," said Western Colorado Area Manager Ed Warner.
The drilling schedule and other project updates will be available on our website. Road closure information is also available on New Mexico’s Department of Transportation website.
