Monticello Dam
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Monticello Dam is a dam in Napa County, California, United States (located at ).
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[edit] Description
Monticello Dam was constructed between 1953 and 1957. The dam is a medium concrete-arch dam with a structural height of 304 ft (93 m) and a crest length of 1023 ft (312 m). It contains 326,000 cubic yards (249,000 m³) of concrete.
[edit] Reservoir
The dam impounds Putah Creek to form Lake Berryessa, the second-largest lake in California. The capacity of the reservoir is 1.602 million acre-feet (1.98 km³). Water from the reservoir is supplied mostly to the North Bay area of San Francisco.
[edit] Electrical power
The Monticello Dam Powerplant was built at the dam in 1983 and has three generators. The electrical power is sent mostly to the North Bay area of San Francisco.
[edit] Trivia
The dam is notable for its classic, uncontrolled "glory hole" spillway with a rate of 48,400 cubic feet per second (1370 m³/s) and a diameter at the lip of 72 feet (22 m). The eerie appearance of the spillway in operation attracts visitors, and when the spillway is dry the outlet downstream is popular with skateboarders (although using the spillway for this purpose is illegal).
[edit] External links
- Solano Project (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation)
- Monticello Dam (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation)
- Glory Hole (Site about the dam's morning glory spillway)
