Opening date 1963 Impounds Clear Creek Spillway type Glory-hole Catchment area 524.5 km² | Type of dam Embankment Length 1,228 ft (374 m) Height 86 m Surface area 13.03 km² Construction began 1960 | |
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Whiskeytown Dam (officially Clair A. Hill Whiskeytown Dam) is an earthfill dam on Clear Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River of northern California in the United States.
Map of Whiskeytown Dam, California 96046, USA
The dam is located about 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Redding, and impounds Whiskeytown Lake on the southern flank of the Trinity Mountains. The dam is 282 feet (86 m) high, with a storage capacity of 241,100 acre feet (297,400 dam3) of water.
The dam was one of the first units built of the Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project, a federal water project intended to provide irrigation water to the eponymous Central Valley. Construction started in August 1960 with clearing operations around the dam site, and excavations for the spillway and outlet tunnels began in October. By late 1961, over one-half of the dam embankment was complete. The dam was topped out on February 7, 1963, and the reservoir was allowed to begin filling. On September 28, it was dedicated by President John F. Kennedy to a crowd of more than 10,000 people.
Water diverted from the Trinity River through the 11-mile (18 km) Clear Creek Tunnel is stored behind Whiskeytown Dam before it is released into the Sacramento River. The water is released to the Sacramento through lower Clear Creek and the Spring Creek Tunnel. The latter furnishes water to the 180 megawatt (MW) Spring Creek Powerplant, which generates about 274 million kilowatt hours (KWh) annually.
The lake and dam are named after the Gold Rush camp of Whiskeytown, which was submerged in 1963 with the filling of the new reservoir.