Heather Bennett, age 9, of Dodge City, Kan., for her question:

HOW LONG IS THE COLORADO RIVER?

Rising in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado, where there is a lot of snow and rain, the Colorado River flows westward and southward for about 1,440 miles and empties into the Gulf of California. It slices across southeastern Utah and northern Arizona and finally flows south between Arizona and California before going into Mexico for its final miles to the sea.

About 244,000 square miles of watershed is drained by the river.

All of the Colorado River valley through the Colorado Plateau is a canyon, with the scenic Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona the deepest part.

A need for flood control and water for irrigation and electric power led the U.S. government to build Hoover Dam. It was completed in Black . Canyon in 1936, cresting the 115 mile long artificial lake named Lake Mead. Other dams on the river include Parker Dam, which supplies water for Los Angeles, and Imperial Dam, which supplies irrigation for the Imperial Valley. On the upper Colorado River are the Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge, Navajo and Curecanti dams, all completed by 1969.