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One of the first major efforts to increase farming and encourage habitation in the arid regions of the western United States, the Rio Grande Project was designed to provide reliable irrigation as well as resolve a dispute over water supply with the Republic of Mexico.  The project's centerpiece is Elephant Butte Dam, a concrete gravity structure 301 feet high and 1,674 feet wide. Elephant Butte Reservoir - with a surface area of 36,600 acres and a capacity of more than 2.2 million acre-feet - was the largest reservoir in the world at the time of its completion.