Don Pedro Reservoir

Coordinates: 37°44′29″N 120°22′25″W / 37.7415°N 120.3735°W / 37.7415; -120.3735
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Don Pedro Reservoir
Primary inflows
Tuolumne River
Primary outflowsTuolumne River
Catchment area1,500 sq mi (3,900 km2)
Basin countriesUnited States
Surface area13,000 acres (5,300 ha)
Water volume2,030,000 acre⋅ft (2.50 km3)
Shore length1160 mi (260 km)
Surface elevation245 m (804 ft)
IslandsLaughlin Ridge
ReferencesU.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Don Pedro Reservoir
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Don Pedro Reservoir, also known as Lake Don Pedro, is a reservoir formed by the construction of the New Don Pedro Dam across the Tuolumne River in Tuolumne County, California, United States.[1]

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has issued a safety advisory for any fish caught in Don Pedro Reservoir due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs.[2]

Geography

Lake Don Pedro is named after Don Pedro Sainsevain.
Overhead view of Don Pedro Reservoir (bottom/east center−right), upstream of irrigated fields in the San Joaquin Valley (top/west)

The reservoir is located in the foothills of the

.

Also referenced as Don Pedro Lake when the name is qualified, the first projects in 1923 are generally referred to as the Old

California Gold Rush
.

When full, the reservoir's shoreline is approximately 160 mi (260 km).[5] The reservoir submerges some 26 mi (42 km) of Tuolumne River bed, and has a surface area of about 13,000 acres (5,300 ha). The 2,030,000 acre⋅ft (2.50 km3) stored here comes from a watershed of over 1,500 sq mi (3,900 km2), and is used by the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) and the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) for the irrigation of several hundred square miles of San Joaquin Valley farm land.

Some of the water is treated by the MID and used as drinking water in

BLM
control the land 15 feet (4.6 m) above the high lake level.

Recreation

The Don Pedro Recreation Area is operated in and around the lake by the

hiking trails.[6][7]

There are three public

boat ramps on the shoreline, in the Blue Oaks Area, Moccasin Point Area, and Fleming Meadows Area.[6][8]

Hetch Hetchy project

While Don Pedro Reservoir is not part of the

Hetch Hetchy Valley depend largely on that possibility. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
(SFPUC), of which Hetch Hetchy Water and Power is a division, provided about 45% of the funds for construction of the 1971 New Don Pedro Dam and so has the right to store 570,000 acre-feet (700,000,000 m3) of water in the reservoir. Each year, San Francisco takes about 230,000 acre-feet (280,000,000 m3). The rights of the MID and the TID are senior to those of SFPUC, however, so in dry years MID and TID can draw down the reservoir to meet their own needs before providing water to San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy Water and Power.

See also

References

  1. ^ Sukhwant Virk; Josh Hinkey (31 August 2007). "Don Pedro Dam". UC Davis. Archived from the original on 10 June 2010. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  2. ^ Admin, OEHHA (2018-02-13). "Don Pedro Lake". oehha.ca.gov. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  3. OCLC 16224503
    . Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  4. ^ Who was Don Pedro? Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine Don Pedro Recreation Agency
  5. ^ Department of Water Resources (2009). "Station Meta Data: Don Pedro Reservoir (DNP)". California Data Exchange Center. State of California. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
  6. ^ a b "Don Pedro Lake Recreation Agency: Reservoir Recreation Map" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-28. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  7. ^ "Don Pedro Lake Recreation Agency: Shoreline Lakeview Trail Map" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-01. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  8. ^ Don Pedro Recreation Area: Boating webpage
Sierra Nevada
foothills.

External links