Restoration Webinar Series: San Clemente Dam Removal
Hear lessons learned from the effort to remove the San Clemente dam on the Carmel River, the largest dam removal in California's history.
About
California is home to over 1,200 regulated dams. With many of those dams built in the late 19th and early 20th century, they are facing or surpassing the century mark, and some are approaching the end of their useful life.
San Clemente Dam was one of those dams that no longer served a productive purpose. The 106-foot-tall concrete arch dam was built in 1921 on the Carmel River as a water supply project. In the early 1990s, the California Division of Safety of Dams determined that the dam was a seismic hazard. By the early 2000s, the reservoir had sedimented in to the point of no longer serving a water supply purpose. In addition, the dam was an impediment to fish passage.
The recently completed San Clemente Dam Removal project on the Carmel River in Monterey County, California, is one of the largest examples of dam removal in the United States. This webinar will review the project and provide details on lessons learned from early project concepts, to the indicative steep-pool design, to alternative delivery contracting and permitting challenges.
About the Restoration Webinar Series
The Restoration Webinar Series, hosted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is a venue for disseminating new approaches, best management practices and innovative restoration techniques to some of our nation’s greatest restoration challenges. The series covers a broad spectrum of topics including: planning and implementing restoration projects; project monitoring and evaluation at multiple time scales; accounting for a changing climate in restoration; regional restoration planning and priority setting; and permitting.