Santiago Dam (also known as Santiago Creek Dam) is an earth/rockfill dam across Santiago Creek in Orange County, in the

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, forming

Irvine Lake Irvine Lake is a reservoir in Orange County, California, United States. It is on Santiago Creek, located in Silverado, California, east of the city of Irvine, California, Irvine and close to Irvine Regional Park. The reservoir is currently opera ...

. The earth dam and its reservoir serve for flood control and recreational purposes. It lies upstream (southeast) from the city of

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and north of

Irvine Irvine may refer to: Places On Earth Antarctica *Irvine Glacier * Mount Irvine (Antarctica) Australia * Irvine Island * Mount Irvine, New South Wales Canada * Irvine, Alberta * Irvine Inlet, Nunavut Scotland *Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotlan ...

. Irvine Lake is the largest body of fresh water entirely in Orange County.

History

Construction on the dam started in 1929 with a joint venture by the

Irvine Company The Irvine Company LLC is an American private company focused on real estate development. It is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with a large portion of its operations centered in and around Irvine, California, a planned city of more ...

and Serrano Irrigation District. After the site was graded, the dam was built using dirt and rock excavated from the sides of the canyon and from the streambed both above and below the dam site. The structure was completed in 1931 at a cost of $1 million, and its reservoir,

, filled by 1933. In the late 1930s, the lake was stocked with fish, and was opened to the public for recreational use in 1941. The dam was built to serve the purpose of flood control, irrigation and municipal water use. With heavy suburban sprawl downstream encroaching since the 1960s, agriculture along lower Santiago Creek has practically ceased. It is currently owned by the Irvine Ranch Water District and the Serrano Water District (the former Serrano Irrigation District). Today the dam marks the usual ending point of surface flow in Santiago Creek, as all the discharge is retained in the reservoir and downstream flow is limited to seepage and stormwater.

Statistics

The Santiago Dam is a roller compacted earth and rockfill structure high and long. It is roughly wide at the base and contains some of material. The dam's spillway is a concrete overflow structure to the left side, equipped with nine openings each wide and high, able to pass a flow exceeding . This spillway has only been used a few times, such as the floods of 1938, 1969, 1983, 1998, 2005 and 2011. The dam crest is above sea level. Irvine Lake is the reservoir formed behind the dam, and has a normal storage of at elevation. Maximum storage is in the event of a flood. This reservoir is not only the largest man-made lake in Orange County, but is also the largest body of fresh water entirely in the county. The lake covers about and is stocked with several species of fish. A fishing license is not required. The dam and reservoir receive water from a catchment area totaling , controlling water from about two-thirds of the Santiago Creek watershed. Santiago Dam is designed to contain up to a 50-year flood and withstand a 500-year flood of over . Aside from Santiago Creek, Limestone Wash and various unnamed streams flow into the reservoir. Upstream tributaries of Santiago Creek include Silverado and Modjeska Creeks. The dam operates in conjunction with the downstream Villa Park Dam, which can store up to . Villa Park is designed to stay dry during normal weather conditions and hold back most flood releases from the Santiago Dam.

References

{{reflist Dams in California United States local public utility dams Dams completed in 1931

History

Statistics

See also

References