Ah Pah Dam was a proposed dam on the

Klamath River The Klamath River (Karuk language, Karuk: ''Ishkêesh'', Klamath language, Klamath: ''Koke'', Yurok language, Yurok: ''Hehlkeek 'We-Roy'') is a long river in southern Oregon and northern California. Beginning near Klamath Falls, Oregon, Klama ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

proposed by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, 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 operatio ...

as part of its United Western Investigation study in 1951. It was to have been high and was to be located upstream of the river's mouth. It would have been taller than any existing dam in the United States and it would stand almost as tall as the

Transamerica Pyramid The Transamerica Pyramid is a pyramid-shaped 48-story modernist skyscraper in San Francisco, California, United States, and the second tallest building in the San Francisco skyline. Located at 600 Montgomery Street between Clay and Washingto ...

building in San Francisco, but would have been much more massive. It would have flooded of the Trinity River, including the Yurok, Karuk and

Hupa The Hupa (Yurok: / 'Hupa people') are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is for Hupa-language speakers in general, and for residents of Hoopa Valley, also sp ...

Indian Reservations, the lower Salmon River, and of the Klamath River, creating a reservoir with a volume of – three fifths the size of

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. L ...

, and over three times the size of the current largest reservoir in California,

Shasta Lake Shasta Lake, also popularly known as Lake Shasta, is a reservoir in Shasta County, California, United States. It began to store water in 1944 due to the impounding of the Sacramento River by Shasta Dam, the ninth-tallest dam in the US. Sh ...

. The water would flow by gravity through a tunnel long to the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

just above Redding and onward to Southern California, in an extreme diversion plan known as the

Klamath Diversion The Klamath Diversion was a federal water project proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1950s. It would have diverted the Klamath River in Northern California to the more arid central and southern parts of that state. It would relieve ...

. The tunnel would have been located near the southernmost extent of the reservoir. It was named in the language of the

Yurok The Yurok people are an Algic-speaking Indigenous people of California that has existed along the or "Health-kick-wer-roy" (now known as the Klamath River) and on the Pacific coast, from Trinidad south of the Klamath’s mouth almost to Cresc ...

people.

References

* ''

Cadillac Desert ''Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water '' is a 1986 American history book by Marc Reisner about land development and water policy in the western United States. The book largely focuses on the history of two federal age ...

'', Marc Reisner, revised edition, Penguin US, (1993),

External links

''Interim Report on Reconnaissance: California Division'', United Western Investigation, Bureau of Reclamation''The Water Center's Watershed Review'', University of Washington
{{coord, 41.422038, N, 123.935909, W, display=title Dams in California History of Humboldt County, California United States Bureau of Reclamation proposed dams