New Melones Dam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Jamestown, California, United States, on the border of Calaveras County and Tuolumne County. The water impounded by the 625-foot-tall (191 m) dam forms New Melones Lake, California's fourth-largest reservoir,[6] in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley. The dam serves mainly for irrigation water supply, and also provides hydropower generation, flood control, and recreation benefits.
The dam was authorized in 1944 as a unit of the federal Central Valley Project, a system designed to provide irrigation water to the fertile agricultural region of the Central Valley. It would be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and transferred to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) upon completion. In 1966, work began to clear the foundations for a high dam that would replace an earlier, much smaller structure built by two irrigation districts. Construction of the main embankment began in 1976, and was topped out in late 1978. The filling of New Melones Lake began in 1978, and the dam's hydroelectric station produced its first power in mid-1979.
New Melones was the focus of a long environmental battle during the 1970s and early 1980s;[7] critics protested the flooding of a long scenic stretch of the Stanislaus River, which flowed over whitewater rapids through the deepest limestone canyon in the western United States. The protestors employed a variety of methods, some extreme, to prevent the filling of New Melones Lake until 1983, when record-setting floods filled the reservoir and nearly breached the dam's emergency spillway. The fight over New Melones galvanized the river conservation movement in California and influenced major water policy changes on the state and federal levels; since its completion, no other dams of its size or importance have been built in the United States.[8]
The New Melones project has continued to generate controversy, due to the water yield from the project being lower than expected, and the use of New Melones water to meet federal environmental standards at the expense of farming. The reservoir is considered "over-allocated"; in an average year, it is unable to meet all the demands placed on it. The debate over water rights continues today, with environmentalists seeking to further increase fishery flows, and the Stanislaus irrigation districts asserting their senior rights to the river.
^ ab"New Melones Dam Dimensions". New Melones Unit Project. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. November 5, 2008. Archived from the original on June 15, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
^ abc"New Melones Dam Hydraulics & Hydrology". New Melones Unit Project. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. November 5, 2008. Archived from the original on September 25, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
^ ab"New Melones Reservoir (NML) Dam Information". California Data Exchange Center. California Department of Water Resources. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
^ abcd"New Melones Powerplant". New Melones Unit Project. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. May 13, 2009. Archived from the original on June 13, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
^"California Hydroelectric Statistics & Data". California Energy Commission. Archived from the original on February 26, 2018. Retrieved February 24, 2017.
^"Alphabetical List of California Dams (Over 40,000 acre feet)". Civil and Environmental Engineering. University of California Davis. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
^"The Stanislaus River, Alive Again". stanislausriver.org. GreenInfo Network. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
NewMelonesDam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Jamestown, California, United States...
the dam would be built. Upon the dam's completion, the valley filled with water, covering the old mining town of Melones and the original MelonesDam. The...
Stanislaus basin. At the lower end of NewMelones Lake is the 625-foot (191 m) tall NewMelonesDam, the sixth tallest dam in the U.S., completed in 1979 for...
Melones may refer to: Melones, California, U.S., a former settlement, now submerged NewMelones Lake NewMelonesDam Carson Hill, California, U.S., formerly...
during construction. An example of a rock-fill dam is NewMelonesDam in California or the Fierza Dam in Albania. A core that is growing in popularity...
2011-04-21. Archived from the original on 2013-02-22. Retrieved 2011-06-20. "NewMelones Lake". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological...
River to fight the flooding of the Stanislaus River and canyon by the NewMelonesDam. He reached national fame when he chained himself to a rock on the...
2012-05-05. "NewMelones Reservoir (NML)". California Data Exchange Center. California Department of Water Resources. Retrieved 2012-05-13. "Palisades Dam". Palisades...
fact, B. melones has the best eyes in the whole genus, except for B. incredula, which is the only species that does not inhabit caves. B. melones has been...
MelonesDam, submerged underneath NewMelones Lake (hence the name NewMelonesDam) is the source of one of these problems. The disused MelonesDam blocks...
California Street (1972), Financial District, San Francisco, California NewMelonesDam (1979), near Jamestown, California BC Place (1983), Vancouver, Canada...
list of the tallest dams in the world over 135 m (443 ft) in height. The tallest dam in the world is the Jinping-I Dam, an arch dam in China at 305 m (1...
Mikesell, Stephen D. (1979). The Stanislaus River Drainage Basin and the NewMelonesDam: Historical Evolution of Water Use Priorities. Davis, California: California...
Browser - Colgate". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-21. "NewMelones Powerplant". NewMelones Unit Project. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. 2009-05-13. Archived...
earthquake Ah Pah Dam (defunct) Auburn Dam (defunct) Centennial Dam Sites Reservoir Temperance Flat Dam California State Water Project List of dam removals in...
Stanislaus River from NewMelonesDam. Some believe that the campaign to save the Stanislaus River marked the end of massive dam building in the United...
Creek Cherokee Creek Stanislaus River Tulloch Dam, Tulloch Reservoir Black Creek NewMelonesDam, NewMelones Lake Mormon Creek Angels Creek Coyote Creek...
the largest of these is Lake Shasta, which formed behind Shasta Dam in the 1940s. The dam can impound 4.552 million acre⋅ft (1.483 trillion US gal; 5.615 trillion L)...
www.usbr.gov. Retrieved February 15, 2020. "Electricity Data Browser - NewMelones". www.eia.gov. Retrieved February 19, 2020. "Electricity Data Browser...
there will be enough water for the City of Stockton with help from the NewMelonesDam but not enough for all farmers. Due to low levels, notices were distributed...
Shasta Dam on the Sacramento or NewMelonesDam on the Stanislaus, or the building of Sites Reservoir, has also been proposed. Lastly, the Auburn Dam has...
1 km3) are annually pumped from the Delta into the Delta-Mendota Canal. NewMelonesDam on the Stanislaus River was finished in 1979, and the reservoir was...
nine-tailed fox named Shin Woo-Yeo and a female college student named Lee Dam who accidentally swallows Shin Woo-Yeo's bead. It premiered on streaming...
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