The start of the main Bay Area reservoir drainage project

Santa Clara County’s largest reservoir will soon be nearly empty, and it will stay that way for the next 10 years.

Under orders from federal dam regulators, the Santa Clara Valley Water District will begin a project to drain the Anderson Reservoir on Thursday, the first step in a $ 576 million effort to demolish and rebuild the aging dam.

The 240-foot-high earth dam, which was built in 1950 and located east of Highway 101 between Morgan Hill and San Jose, poses an extremely high risk of collapse during a major earthquake, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the dams, concluded in February when it issued the order .

During construction, Anderson Lake County Park will remain closed to boating and fishing. Some of the walkways and daily-use picnic spots, most of them downstream along Coyote Creek, will remain open, but the main car park and boat ramp area will be off-limits, possibly until 2030.

“This project will take a long time,” said John Varela, a board member of the Water District. “But I can tell you that when the work is done, our communities in Morgan Hill and along Coyote Creek will be safer. Who will deserve it.”

The region provides drinking water and flood control to 2 million people in Santa Clara County.

Anderson Reservoir is seven miles long. When completed, it contains 89,278 acres of water – more than all of the other nine dams managed by the water district combined.

In January, due to a largely dry winter, the reservoir was only 30% full. During the summer, the water area reduced its water level to a full 18%, to deliver water to homes and businesses, and to use it to recharge the aquifers. Starting this week, the agency will reduce the level to just 3%. This can be achieved as early as December if the weather is dry. If it rains a lot this winter, it could take up to next June, depending on the water district.

Even at 3% complete, the lake will still contain about 3,000 acres of water, roughly like the Stevens Creek Reservoir when it is full, or seven times the size of Lake Fasuna in Los Gatos. This “dead pond” would be enough to keep the good number of fish and other aquatic animals that live in the tank now alive, although it will disappear completely within four years.

Most importantly, the agency’s water managers said on Tuesday that they do not expect water loss to Anderson Reservoir to cause significant shortages in Silicon Valley in the coming years.

They said there are three reasons. First, the area typically draws about half of its water from groundwater wells in Santa Clara County. These aquifers are nearly full, after heavy rains in 2017, and regular work to regenerate them.

Second, the county has 340,000 acres of water, more than a one-year supply, which it has been holding for years in the Kern County aquifers in the subtropical water storage area. And she plans to make use of some of that water.

Third, district officials say, if there was a multi-year drought, water levels in Anderson would drop anyway.

“In some years during the drought – like 2015 – there was actually more evaporation from the tank than we were getting in storage,” said Aaron Baker, deputy operating officer for the raw water division in the Water District.

“Realistically, in the big picture, yes, the tank definitely has its benefits,” said Baker. “But during a period of drought, we feel quite comfortable that it is primary storage that can balance our domestic supplies, groundwater drains and imported transfers.”

The watershed has already transported 70 endangered steel trout species, from Coyote Creek to Upper Penitensia Creek. To stop Coyote Creek, a major body of water flowing through downtown San Jose, from completely drying out during construction, the area plans to release imported water through a pipeline into the creek. Some of them will also be moved to filter ponds near Coyote Creek Golf Course, to enhance the local groundwater supply.

Many of the project’s neighbors are not happy. Some worry about landslides when the tank dries up. Others are concerned about losing their property values, or losing tank water to firefighting helicopters.

“I felt so helpless,” said Lyn Meyer, one of about 500 residents of the Holiday Lake Estates community next to the reservoir. “Some people move because of this. Our neighbors on the street have just moved because of that.”

Federal regulators criticized the water district for taking too long to implement the project. The agency first learned about seismic problems in 2009, and later released engineering studies showing that a 6.6-magnitude earthquake directly on the Calaveras Fault at Anderson Reservoir, or a 7.2-magnitude earthquake one mile away, could cause the reservoir’s massive earthen dam to collapse and fail.

Although the chances are very slim, if it happened when the reservoir was full, it might have sent a 35-foot wall of water into downtown Morgan Hill in 14 minutes. Water would have reached a depth of 8 feet in San Jose within three hours, which could have killed thousands of people.

“The amount of damage that can be done in the event of a catastrophic failure is very large,” said Chris Hicks, Deputy District Operations Officer for Dam Safety and Capital Delivery. “From a life safety perspective, it is extremely important to modernize this facility.”

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