Pyramid Dam
Embankment dam impounding Piru Creek in Los Angeles County, California, United States
Pyramid Dam is a dam on Piru Creek in northern Los Angeles County, California, north of Castaic and south of Gorman. Its reservoir, Pyramid Lake, stores water from the West Branch of the California Aqueduct for Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. They are smaller than Castaic Dam and Lake, the other artificial water storage facility in the area, 7 miles (11 km) to the south.
01Funding and construction
Construction of the dam was made possible by California voter approval in 1960 of the California Aqueduct project, also referred to as the Feather River project (the source of the water in the northern part of the state north of Auburn). State bonds were issued to finance the project. Pyramid Dam, which first began construction in 1968, is 386 feet (118 m) high. It lies directly behind the mountain rock, giving the dam and lake its name, Pyramid Cut, which before the Ridge Route Alternate (later signed as U.S. Route 99) was built through the area in the 1931 to 1933 time period, was just another ordinary mountain. The highway construction of the Ridge Route Alternate caused this mountain to have part of its mass "shaved" off, reduced in size, and after the work to accommodate highway traffic was finished, the shape of the cut was found to resemble a pyramid, and hence the name.
02Statistics
Pyramid Dam holds 171,196 acre-feet (211,167,000 m3) of water, covering an area of 1,297 acres (525 ha). Its maximum capacity is 180,000 acre-feet (220,000,000 m3). The lake behind the dam, shaped like a Triceratops tooth, has been used for boating, swimming, and camping since 1974. The dam and lake were built by the state of California Department of Water Resources (DWR), which maintains them today. The water stored there serves residents, businesses, and farmers in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.
03US 99
During the construction of Pyramid Dam, US 99 vehicle traffic was rerouted to Interstate 5 beginning in 1968. In the 1968-9 time period, motorists could still drive US 99 from Violin Summit to Hungry Valley Road (since renamed Smokey Bear Road). After completion of the dam in 1970, Feather River water began to fill the area behind the dam, a plan conceived of even before the construction of the Ridge Route Alternate. By 1972, the Ridge Route Alternate was fully submerged under the lake's water. Since then, its northern border with the lake continues to serve as a boat ramp. The lake's southern border portion of US 99 is closed to motorists.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pyramid Dam”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Pyramiddam.jpg by US Geological Survey, Public domain
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