4.2.4 Calaveras Dam

Calaveras Dam was completed on March 3, 1926 and failed on March 23. Calaveras Dam is located approximately 10 miles northeast of the city of San Jose. This dam had a height of about 200 ft above the streambed of Calaveras Canyon and a crest length of approximately 1200 ft, and contains approximately 2,646,000 cubic m of embankment. Construction of the dam as a hydraulic fill was started in 1913, and the structure was not completed until 1925. The reservoir has a storage capacity of about 100,000 acre-feet at apillway crest elevation 752.5, and a drainage area of about 135 sq miles.

This dam failure was happened right after the construction completion. Original Investigators concluded that the main reasons of failure were that very fine material was sluiced too much and core layer was incapable of drainage.

Calaveras Dam failure, courtesy of Ronn Rose, USACE

Sources:

- California Department of Water Resources, Division of Safety of Dams.
- Olivia Chen Consultants (2002). Report on Seismic Stability of Calaveras Dam. Prepared for San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
- Jack Wulff, Advanced dam engineering for design, construction, and rehabilitation, 1988, Edited by Jansen, Van Nostrand Reinhold, NY.