The New Waddell Dam is an embankment dam on the Agua Fria River in Maricopa County, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix. It serves as part of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) while also providing water for the Maricopa Water District. The dam creates Lake Pleasant with water from the Agua Fria and also the CAP aqueduct. In addition, it affords flood protection, hydroelectric power production and recreational opportunities. Construction on the dam began in 1985 and ended in 1994. Its reservoir submerged the Old Waddell Dam which was completed in 1927 after decades of planning. History Old Waddell Dam First referred to as the Frogs Tank Dam, the original Waddell Dam was the ambition of local businessmen who wanted to develop a project that used the Agua Fria for the irrigation of around of land. This was to be accomplished with a storage dam, diversion dam and system of canals. Their advancement of the project began in 1888 with the formation of the Agua Fria Water and Land Company. The company hired George Beardsley's Agua Fria Construction Company, and in 1892, construction on the project began. In 1895, Beardsley died, and his brother William who was now president of the Water and Land Company helped continue the project. In 1896, due to a lack of funding caused by poor nationwide economic conditions, the project was halted. The Water and Land Company soon went bankrupt, but William Beardsley would keep the project alive. Work had been primarily done on the diversion dam and canal while only the foundation of the storage dam, a gravity dam, was completed. The diversion dam, Camp Dyer Diversion Dam, was named after Edgar J. Dyer, a surveyor on the project. After nearly 30 years of struggling with funding and pursuing various deals, William Beardsley hired engineer Carl Pleasant to assist with designing. Pleasant recommended hiring the engineer firm Peckham and James to draft plans for the storage dam at the Frogs Tank site. The gravity dam design was dropped, and a relatively new, cheaper and improved but controversial design was adopted: the multiple-arch buttress dam. In 1925, under a new state law, Beardsley was able to create the Beardsley-Agua Fria Water Conservation District. Under the new district, funds could be raised through a bond issue. On December 20, 1925, the construction contract was signed, but the bonds had yet to be purchased. Five days before the contract