Cougar Dam
| Cougar Dam | |
|---|---|
Aerial view
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| Location | Lane County, Oregon, USA |
| Coordinates | 44°7′44″N 122°14′25″W / 44.12889°N 122.24028°WCoordinates: 44°7′44″N 122°14′25″W / 44.12889°N 122.24028°W |
| Opening date | 1964 |
| Operator(s) | Cenwp |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Impounds | South Fork McKenzie River |
| Height | 519 feet (158 m) |
| Length | 1,600 feet (488 m) |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Cougar Reservoir |
| Total capacity | 219,000 acre feet (0.270 km3) |
| Catchment area | 210 square miles (544 km2) |
| Surface area | 1,280 acres (520 ha) |
Cougar Dam is a 519-foot (158 m) tall rockfill hydroelectric dam in the U.S. state of Oregon. It has a gated concrete spillway and a powerhouse with two turbines totaling 25 megawatts of electric power.
The dam impounds the South Fork McKenzie River about 42 miles (68 km) east of Eugene, Oregon, creating Cougar Reservoir which has a storage capacity of 219,000 acre feet (270,000,000 m3). The purpose of Cougar Dam is to provide flood risk management, hydropower, water quality improvement, irrigation, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, storage, and navigation.
In 2005, the Willamette temperature control facility was constructed to help regulate the water temperature released to the river below Cougar Dam in an attempt to reduce the negative effects on salmon migration. To further help recover threatened chinook salmon and bull trout populations, in the Willamette River Basin, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a fish collection and sorting facility on the South Fork McKenzie River below Cougar Dam which was completed in 2010. From 2003 to 2005, state-of-the-art turbine runners were installed in the turbine-generator units at the Cougar powerhouse, and were designed to resist cavitation and operate efficiently at very large head ranges.
Cougar Dam was completed in 1963 at a cost of $54.2 million and the two turbine units were completed in 1964. Cougar Dam is operated in coordination with Blue River Dam to control flooding, and since the completion of the dam, it is estimated that it prevented approximately $452 million in potential flood damages. The dam consists of a rock-fill embankment approximately 1,500 feet (460 m) long, a to power two Kaplan turbines, an emergency spillway capable of a capacity of 76,140 cu ft/s (2,156 m3/s), a regulating outlet, and a diversion tunnel. The diversion tunnel was built to divert the South Fork McKenzie River during the construction of Cougar Dam, and the tunnel was later closed with a concrete plug once the construction of the dam was complete.
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