Mason Dam is a dam near

Baker City, Oregon Baker City is a city in and the county seat of Baker County, Oregon, United States. It was named after Edward D. Baker, the only U.S. Senator ever killed in military combat. The population was 10,099 at the time of the 2020 census. History Pl ...

, in Baker County, of the north-eastern part of the state. Mason Dam is a water conservation project of the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, an earthen and rockfill dam originally constructed from 1965 through 1968. Owned by the Bureau, it is operated by the local Baker Valley Irrigation District. The nearby Thief Valley Reservoir from 1932 is part of the same Baker Project. The dam is 167 feet high, and the reservoir has a capacity of 114,000

acre-feet The acre-foot is a non- SI unit of volume equal to about commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water, and river flows. An acre-f ...

. It impounds the water of the Powder River to create Phillips Reservoir, which covers 2,235 acres and offers recreational fishing, boating, camping, etc. The lake is surrounded by the

Wallowa–Whitman National Forest The Wallowa–Whitman National Forest is a United States National Forest in the U.S. states of Oregon and Idaho. Formed upon the merger of the Wallowa and Whitman national forests in 1954, it is located in the northeastern corner of the state, in ...

. Baker County is in the process of adding a hydroelectric power plant at the dam which would sell power to Idaho Power through a nearby 138 kilovolt transmission line

References

{{coord, 44.67250, -117.9996, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-OR Buildings and structures in Baker County, Oregon Dams in Oregon United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1968 1968 establishments in Oregon Wallowa–Whitman National Forest

See also

References