Schafer Dam—formerly Success Dam, prior to 2019—is a dam across 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. Th ...

Tulare County, California 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 La ...

, 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 and impounds Lake Success, with a built-capacity of , and an operational capacity of due to dam stability concerns.

History

The dam was initially authorized by 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 ac ...

as part of an extensive system of dams and levees to provide flood protection in the

Tulare Lake Tulare Lake () or Tache Lake ( Yokuts: ''Pah-áh-su'', ''Pah-áh-sē'') is a freshwater lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. Historically, Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi R ...

basin of the southern

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...

. The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wor ...

(USACE) began construction of Success Dam in 1958 and finished in 1961, with the official dedication on May 18, 1962. The Corps of Engineers found in 1999 that the alluvial deposits that form the foundations of the dam were unstable and that the dam would be at a high risk of failure in the event of an earthquake. In 2006, new regulations were passed that limited long-term water storage in the reservoir to , 35% of capacity. A proposed $500 million project would increase the thickness of the dam by so that it could better withstand a quake in the region. In August 2019, the 116th Congress of the United States enacted PL-116-41 which said (in part) that ''the Success Dam in Tulare County, California, shall hereafter be known and designated as the ‘‘Richard L. Schafer Dam’’.'' In January 2025, the dam received national attention after

President Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. ...

signed orders to release significantly more water from several Federal dams to put more water in

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountai ...

water reservoirs, following the destructive Los Angeles wildfires earlier that month. According to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', "it was not clear where federal officials intended to send the water that was being released from the dams." Outflows from the dam discharge into the Tulare Lake bed almost north of Los Angeles, and there is no infrastructure to deliver Tule River water to Southern California.

References

{{Tulare Basin Hydrography Dams in the Tulare Basin Buildings and structures in Tulare County, California Dams in California Earth-filled dams United States Army Corps of Engineers dams Dams completed in 1961

History

See also

References