Diamond Valley Lake
| Diamond Valley Lake | ||
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| Diamond Valley Lake from a lookout point | ||
| Geographical location | Riverside County , California , USA | |
| Tributaries | Inland feeder | |
| Location close to the shore | Hemet | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 33 ° 40 '42 " N , 117 ° 2' 30" W | |
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| Altitude above sea level | 464 m | |
| surface | 18 km² | |
| length | 7.2 km | |
| width | 3 km | |
| volume | 0.99 km³ | |
| Maximum depth | 79 m | |
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particularities |
Reservoir |
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The Diamond Valley Lake is a reservoir in Riverside County in the US state of California near the town of Hemet . It is also one of the largest and newest reservoirs in Southern California . The stored 990,000,000 m³ of water is used in dry, hot summers and in emergencies.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California began the $ 1.9 million construction project in 1995. The filling of the lake by the Colorado River Aqueduct lasted from 1999 to 2003. Today the backwater is directed into the lake by the inland feeder .
The three dams of Diamond Valley Lake are spread over the two ends of the valley in which the lake is located and the north end of the lake. Materials from the area were used to build the dams. The result was one of the largest earthworks in the United States, which led to numerous paleontological finds in the ground, all of which are on display in the Western Science Center at the eastern end of the reservoir.
The lake and its surrounding area are open to the public for various recreational activities such as boating, fishing and hiking.
geography
Diamond Valley Lake lies at an elevation of 464 m in unincorporated territory in the Domenigoni Valley and Diamond Valley, 6.4 km southwest of Hemet . The reason for the construction of the reservoir in this area was the location between Los Angeles and San Diego as well as the locally accessible raw materials for the construction of the three dams . The proximity to the Colorado River Aqueduct , 8 km away , through which the reservoir was filled with water, was also decisive.
Today Diamond Valley Lake holds 990,000,000 m³ of water and covers an area of 18 km². The length is 7.2 km, the width 3 km. The lake has a maximum depth of 79 m.
Emergence
In 1987 the planning of the lake began. The primary objective was to provide water to Southern California during dry seasons or emergencies. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California chose the current location because of its geographic location and began planning the construction project in 1993. In 1995 the construction of the lake and its dams started. With 31 million m³ of excavated earth and 84 million m³ of earth for the construction of dikes, Diamond Valley Lake is one of the largest earthworks projects in US history . The machines used were the largest available at the time and set new standards in earthworks. The two stone processing plants used exceeded all individual plants of this type in all of California in terms of their output. Diamond Valley Lake has been the largest construction project in the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California since the Colorado River Aqueduct was built.
At peak times in 1997 and 1998, 1,800 workers were involved in the implementation of the project, and at times as many as 1,900 people were working on the construction of the three dams. A total of 5,000 people worked to build Diamond Valley Lake.
Dams
The three dams of the lake were completed in 1999. For their construction 31 million m³ of earth had to be dug; 84 million m³ of sand, clay and stone were required for construction. Most of these materials came from the construction area itself, for example the muddy and clayey alluvial soil from the bottom of the unfinished reservoir as well as the stones on the southern edge of Diamond Valley Lake were used. In the construction of the dams, the earthquake hazard from the San Jacinto Fault 9.7 km away and the San Andreas Fault 31 km away were also taken into account.
West dam
The west dam rises 87 m above the valley floor. It spans 2.4 km over an almost flat alluvial floor between two rock ridges. Approximately 65% of the dam floor is on quartzite and phyllite rock . The rest lies in three 37 m deep gullies that are filled with alluvial soil. The excavated earth was distributed 27 m below the original ground in order to counteract the liquefaction of earth layers, which would have made the dam unstable to earthquakes. In order to prevent the stored water from seeping away, 0.91 m thick sealing walls made of a plastic-concrete mixture were installed over the gutters and dug at least 0.61 m into the bedrock. To prevent seepage through the rock, it was solidified and a double sealing screen was installed at a depth of around 38 m. This process took two years, and the mortar-filled holes ended up being 304 km in total.
East dam
The 3.4 km long east dam was built in a joint project led by the Kiewit Group and is the longest of the three dams. At the lower end it is 370 m wide, at the upper end it is 12 m wide. In order to build the dam on solid rock, 14 million m³ of the overlying soil had to be removed before the actual construction work began.
For the construction of the dam itself, 33 million m³ of gravel were required. For this purpose, there was a crushing machine on site that processed 14 million tons of stone into usable material for dam construction in twenty months. The 0.91 m thick cut-off walls used for the Westdamm were installed in areas of the foundation stone that are between 3 and 34 m deep and cover an area of 23,000 m². An additional sealing screen, like the one on the west dam, lies up to 46 m deep in the northern part of the east dam and up to 30 m deep in the rock in the southern part.
Some of the world's largest trucks were used on Diamond Valley Lake to provide the enormous quantities of material for the east dam .
Saddle dam
The saddle dam rises 40 meters above the lowest point in the ridge line on the north shore of Diamond Valley Lake and is approximately 0.8 km long. It serves to increase the storage capacity of the reservoir, as this would have been limited by the low-lying ridge line. The dam was built on phyllite and mica schist . In order to prevent possible seepage of storage water, a double cut-off wall was installed 30 m below the ground, as with the west and east dams.
Filling the reservoir
In 1999, the filling of the reservoir began; the water came from the Colorado River Aqueduct and the San Diego Canal. It was first directed into the inlet basin, a 140,000 m² large and 620,000 m³ water basin, before it reached the pumping station. The pumping station was named after one of the founders of the Metropolitan Water District, Hiram W. Wadsworth, and comprises twelve individual pumps, each with an output of 6000 hp (4500 kW). The water flows through them from the inlet basin to the tower for water inlet and outlet. In 2001 four pumps were converted into turbines for generating electricity, which can generate an output of 3 MW . If all twelve pumps had been converted, the entire system would be 40 MW.
The pumping station is located near the west dam. From here the water is conveyed through a 610 m long and 4.9 m wide tunnel via the inlet and outlet tower into the actual reservoir. At peak times, 28 m³ of water per second flowed into Diamond Valley Lake. In 2003 the lake was completely filled with water.
The Inland Feeder has been providing water for Diamond Valley Lake since 2009 . Before that, he had been without a water source for two years. New water was needed because the Metropolitan Water District had resorted to the stored water in previous periods of drought. Water from the Colorado River Aqueduct is no longer used due to the threat posed by the quagga clam . Other reservoirs in California have already fallen victim to this.
Paleontological finds
During the excavations for the lake, bones and skeletons of extinct mastodons , mammoths , camels , sloths and animals of the genera Canis dirus and Bison latifrons were found. Paleontologists from the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands , California uncovered thousands of fossils in the Diamond Valley and Domenigoni Valley, increasing the area's popularity.
The findings of animal fossils from the Pleistocene epoch provide an insight into southern California's inland during the Ice Age and close a data gap between fossil finds in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and those in the Mojave Desert . Unofficially, the area around Diamond Valley Lake is also known as the "Valley of the Mastodons". The fossils found come from the following species from the late Pleistocene:
- Jefferson ground sloth ( Megalonyx jeffersonii )
- Paramylodon harlani
- Canis dirus
- Short- faced bear ( Arctodus simus )
- Smilodon fatalis
- American lion ( Panthera leo atrox )
- Mammoth pacificus
- Prairie mammoth ( Mammuthus columbi )
- Equus occidentalis
- Equus conversidens
- Platygonus compressus
- Camelops hersternus
- Bison antiquus
- Bison latifrons
- Capromeryx minor
Many fossils of rabbits , rodents , pond turtles , coyotes , deer and black bears were also uncovered. Fossils of the American mastodon ( Mammut americanum ) were particularly common. Since it is assumed that these animals lived exclusively in the forest, the amount of found mastodon fossils suggests that the area around today's Diamond Valley Lake was more forested in the last Ice Age than it is now; Fossil remains of the yellow pine ( Pinus ponderosa ) and the shrub Crataegus mexicana support this conclusion. Radiometric analyzes of the plant fossils suggest an age of less than 13,000 years to more than 60,000 years.
Recreation area
Fishing and boating are permitted on Diamond Valley Lake. At the eastern end of the reservoir there is also a recreation park with a water sports center and visitor center as well as the Western Science Center museum and a marina . The pumping station, the inlet and outlet tower and most of the lake can be viewed from a vantage point at the west end. To the south of the lake is the Southwestern Riverside County Multi-Species Reserve, which covers an area of 55 km² from Diamond Valley Lake to Lake Skinner . It serves to protect at least 16 sensitive and threatened animal and plant species.
Before fish were placed in the lake itself, they were raised in a basin in the lower valley. Today live variety of freshwater fish in the Diamond Valley Lake, including largemouth bass ( Micropterus salmoides ), smallmouth bass ( Micropterus Dolomieu ) Bluegill sunfish ( Lepomis macrochirus ) annularis Pomoxis , rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ), Morone saxatilis , Getüpfelter catfish ( Ictalurus punctatus ) and Alosa . Diamond Valley Lake is considered to be one of the best fishing areas in California .
The area around the lake was mostly undeveloped and empty. Initial plans included the construction of large recreational areas with golf courses, campsites, swimming lakes, water parks and other facilities on both the west and east ends of the lake. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is still planning these additional leisure facilities today, but a lack of funding and support from developers has prevented their implementation so far.
Web links
- Diamond Valley Lake in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
- Official website of the Diamond Valley Lakes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Creating Diamond Valley Lake, dvlake.com (English)
- ↑ OpenStreetMap
- ↑ a b c d e f g Water-Technology.net (English)
- ↑ Construction, dvlake.com (English)
- ↑ a b "Hiram Wadsworth fitting name for massive Hemet reservoir" (PDF; 9 kB) Pasadena Star News, January 5, 2000 (English)
- ↑ Building the Lake, dvlake.com (English)
- ↑ Diamond Valley Lake Reservoir dedicated project doubles regions storage capacity The free library (English)
- ↑ Hiram W. Wadsworth Pumping-Hydro-generating Facility (PDF; 634 kB) Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (English)
- ↑ Building the Lake: the I / O Tower (English)
- ↑ About Diamond Valley Lake, dvlake.com (English)
- ↑ Frequently Asked Questions: Fishing, dvmarina.com ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
