Qualla: Poechos Reservoir https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Poechos Reservoir https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir Poechos Reservoir: Introduction https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Alfredobi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. A billion cubic meters. That is what the engineers held back when they closed the Poechos Dam in 1976, and the scale was the point. Peru was in the middle of a military government that had nationalized the country's oil fields and promised its coastal farmers that the Piura valley would never again go thirsty. The Chira River, fed by Ecuadorian rains, would be tamed into irrigation canals stretching 42 kilometers south. The reservoir that rose behind the dam now holds enough water to irrigate 350 square kilometers of desert and generate electricity for a region that once went dark whenever the grid blinked. Seen from above, it is an improbable blue shape pressed against the border with Ecuador.

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/6pnv-poechos-reservoir-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Poechos Reservoir: A Dictator's Dam https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Alfredobi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. General Juan Velasco Alvarado seized power in 1968 and moved immediately against the International Petroleum Company, nationalizing the Talara refinery and creating Petroperu. Infrastructure followed ideology. If the revolution was going to redistribute the country's wealth, it n...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/6pnv-poechos-reservoir-a-dictators-dam.mp3 0:06 2 full Poechos Reservoir: Four Phases of Concrete https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Alfredobi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The original dam was only the beginning. Phase one built the reservoir itself, the overflow structures capable of handling 10,000 cubic meters per second during floods, and a drainage channel in the lower Chira with more than 1,000 gates and outlets. Phase two, running from 1978 ...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/6pnv-poechos-reservoir-four-phases-of-concrete.mp3 0:06 3 full Poechos Reservoir: Desert, Remade https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Alfredobi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Before the dam, northern Peru's coastal valleys survived on whatever the Chira and Piura rivers chose to deliver. El Nino years brought catastrophic floods. La Nina years brought drought. Farmers planted cotton and rice on the strength of old almanacs and the hope that the rains ...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/6pnv-poechos-reservoir-desert-remade.mp3 0:06 4 full Poechos Reservoir: The Sediment Problem https://qualla.com/poechos-reservoir/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Alfredobi assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Every reservoir ages. The Chira River carries sediment from the Andean foothills, and for five decades that sediment has been settling into the bottom of Poechos. The dam was designed for a billion cubic meters of useful capacity. Studies today suggest the reservoir has lost a si...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/p/n/v/poechos-reservoir-wp/6pnv-poechos-reservoir-the-sediment-problem.mp3 0:06 5 full