USA, AZ/Tempe: Salt River With Panorama Of Tempe Editorial Photo

The (old) dam in the foreground dams up Rio Salado/Salt River in Tempe. In 2016 a new dam was built. Usually the river bed (foreground) is almost dry, but on September 8, 2014 torrential rains filled the reservoir (Tempe Town Lake) to the brim and had to be released into the river bed. This was regulated by a rubber dam, controlled by an operating system that inflates or deflates rubber tubes. The tubes were bolted to concrete slabs. To protect the rubber from the heat of the sun, a pedestrian bridge (with sun sails above the slabs) was built to shade the rubber; background panorama: US Airways Center on the right, Hayden Butte (A-Butte) with Hayden Flour Mill in the center, office buildings on the left.