Spring Creek Dam

1 ANSWERS

1. GiGi
   

   Spring Creek Dam is an earthfill dam on the Spring Creek fork of the Sacramento River, in Shasta County, California. Originally built from 1961 to 1963, the dam, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, serves to control water flow into the tailrace of a downstream power station as well as to capture debris and severe acid mine drainage heading down Spring Creek. The dam forms the Spring Creek Reservoir, less than 1 mile (1.6 km) long. Spring Creek and South Fork Spring Creek flow into the reservoir from a 16 square miles (41 km2) watershed. The dam is directly upstream from the city of Keswick, California and the Keswick Reservoir. The operation is part of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project.
   
   The primary purpose of the Spring Creek Dam was to collect acid mine drainage from the old Iron Mountain Mine, which was heavily polluting Spring Creek and its tributaries. The dam was built in response to the pollutants that were contaminating reservoirs on the Sacramento River, which was and still is the water supply of millions of Californians. Although the watershed is small in comparison to that of the Sacramento River, the stream is among the most polluted and acidic in the world.
   
   The dam and reservoir, along with other treatment structures built at and below the mine, have successfully reduced the dry weather pollution of Spring Creek by up to ninety-five percent. Problems, though, still occur mainly in the form of large uncontrolled spills from the reservoir. Several concerns about the structural integrity and safety of the dam, both physically and biologically, arose in the 1990s. Emergency releases from Shasta Lake, often in the value of thousands of acre feet of water, have occurred from time to time to dilute massive acid spills from the Spring Creek drainage.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 8 month(s) ago