Terminus Dam is a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...

on the

Kaweah River The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Park, ...

Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, located near Three Rivers about from the western boundary of

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

and east of

Visalia Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...

. The dam forms

Lake Kaweah Lake Kaweah is a reservoir near Lemon Cove in Tulare County, California. The lake is formed by Terminus Dam on the Kaweah River. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada and drains about into Lake Kaweah before flowing towards the San Joaquin ...

for

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

and

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...

water supply. Completed by the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

(USACE) in 1962, Terminus is an

earthfill dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, ...

high and long. The reservoir has a maximum capacity of of water, although it usually sits at much lower levels.

History

Terminus Dam is one of four dams built on the rivers of the

Tulare Lake Tulare Lake () (Spanish: ''Laguna de Tache'', Yokuts: ''Pah-áh-su'') is a freshwater dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. After Lake Cahuilla disappeared in the 17th century ...

basin, located at the southern end of the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...

. In the 1920s, the USACE and the State of California first surveyed the area for suitable reservoir sites to provide irrigation water.Brewer, p. 55 After devastating floods in the late 1930s, the

Flood Control Act of 1944 The Pick-Sloan Flood Control Act of 1944 (P.L. 78–534), enacted in the 2nd session of the 78th Congress, is U.S. legislation that authorized the construction of numerous dams and modifications to previously existing dams, as well as levees acros ...

authorized the USACE to build Terminus Dam as part of a system to provide flood protection for the Tulare basin. In 1948, with plans for the dam on the Kaweah River nearly complete, an archaeological survey of the future reservoir site revealed an unusually rich selection of Native American artifacts. Many of these were removed by the U.S. National Park Service's Interagency Archaeological Salvage Program before the beginning of work on the dam. Construction of Terminus Dam started in the late 1950s and was completed in 1962. The dam was dedicated along with the

Success Dam Success Dam is a dam across the Tule River in Tulare County, California in the United States. Serving mainly for flood control and irrigation, the dam is an earthen embankment structure high and long. The dam lies about east of Porterville a ...

, further south on the

Tule River The Tule River, also called Rio de San Pedro or Rio San Pedro, is a river in Tulare County in the U.S. state of California. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada east of Porterville and consists of three forks, North, Middle and South. The N ...

, on May 18, 1962. The reservoir filled for the first time in 1964 to its initial capacity of .

Sedimentation Sedimentation is the deposition of sediments. It takes place when particles in suspension settle out of the fluid in which they are entrained and come to rest against a barrier. This is due to their motion through the fluid in response to the ...

had reduced this to according to a study conducted in 1977. Together with the three other major dams in the Tulare basin, Terminus Dam contributed to the desiccation of Tulare Lake, once one of the largest wetland regions in the United States.

Spillway expansion

In the 1990s the USACE began studies for a project to increase the capacity of the dam's

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

, which was considered inadequate to pass the probable maximum flood on the Kaweah River. In 2001 work began to enlarge the spillway channel and between 2003 and 2004 six fusegates were installed in the spillway channel, raising the maximum elevation of the reservoir by . The fusegates, invented and patented by

François Lempérière François Lempérière, born in 1926 in Cherbourg, is a French civil engineer who built and/or designed 15 dams in France and other countries. He invented solutions such as Fusegates, Piano Keys Weir, Twin Dams and Tidal Gardens. He received his ...

for Hydroplus, subsidiary of GTM Entrepose, are the largest in the world, and are designed to open automatically by water pressure when Lake Kaweah reaches dangerously high levels. The design was chosen because it would provide cost savings over conventional options such as a concrete or gated spillway. The project increased the storage capacity of Lake Kaweah by more than , to its current capacity of , and ensured the capability of Terminus Dam to pass a flood of up to . The dam is now capable of completely controlling a 70-year flood, as compared to a 46-year flood before the fusegates were installed.

Functions

As a

dry dam A dry dam is a dam constructed for the purpose of flood control. Dry dams typically contain no gates or turbines, and are intended to allow the channel to flow freely during normal conditions. During periods of intense rainfall that would otherw ...

, Terminus Dam's primary purpose is flood control; consequently, the reservoir is usually maintained at a very low level, except in late spring and early summer when it is used to store snowmelt runoff from the Sierra Nevada. The dam provides flood protection for of farmland and 300,000 people along the lower Kaweah River. Shortly after its completion, the dam and reservoir were put to the test by record floods in December 1966, during which Terminus, Success and

Isabella Isabella may refer to: People and fictional characters * Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Isabella (surname), including a list of people Places United States * Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpor ...

Dams prevented a collective $81.9 million of damages. Between 1962 and 2012, Terminus Dam has prevented $373,225,000 of flood-related damages. Water releases from Terminus Dam are made based on agricultural demand when flood control releases are not required. Snowmelt runoff stored in Lake Kaweah are released at high rates between May and late July-early August during the peak of the irrigation season. The water serves multiple local water districts such as the Tulare Irrigation District (TID) and Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District (KDWCD), as well as urban areas including

and Tulare. The dam also generates

hydroelectricity Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other Renewabl ...

from a plant built in 1992 by the Kaweah River Power Authority (KRPA), which is jointly managed by TID and KDWCD. Electricity generated here is distributed by

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of app ...

. The power plant currently has a capacity of 20.09

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

s (MW), upgraded from its original capacity of 17 MW, and generates roughly 40 million

kilowatt hour A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

s (KWh) per year. The KRPA planned to expand this capacity by a further 9 MW, which would allow for the generation of an additional 9.2 million KWh, but construction has not yet started . In February 2020, the KRPA filed to transfer their operating license to Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, the US subsidiary of

Ontario Power Generation Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation and "government business enterprise" that is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is w ...

References

Works cited

* *

External links

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Lake KaweahDaily data for Terminus Dam and Lake Kaweah
- California Department of Water Resources {{Tulare Basin Hydrography

Terminus Terminus may refer to: * Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end destination * Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination Geography *Terminus, the unofficial original name of Atlanta, Georgia, United ...