Searsville Dam
| Searsville Dam | |
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Searsville Lake and dam around 2009 with heavy reservoir siltation visible
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 Location of Searsville Dam in USA California
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| Location | San Mateo County, California, USA |
| Coordinates | 37°24′25″N 122°14′16″W / 37.40694°N 122.23778°WCoordinates: 37°24′25″N 122°14′16″W / 37.40694°N 122.23778°W |
| Construction began | 1890 |
| Opening date | 1892 |
| Owner(s) | Stanford University |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Type of dam | Masonry |
| Impounds | Corte Madera Creek in the San Francisquito Creek watershed |
| Height | 65 ft (20 m) |
| Width (base) | 275 ft (84 m) |
| Spillway type | Service, stepped |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Searsville Lake |
Searsville Dam is a masonry dam in San Mateo County, California that was completed in 1892, one year after the founding of Stanford University, and impounds Corte Madera Creek (in the San Francisquito Creek watershed) to form a reservoir known as Searsville Lake. Searsville Dam is located in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve and is owned and operated by Stanford University. Neighboring cities include Woodside and Portola Valley, California.
The dam caused the partial inundation of the small and declining town of Searsville and the Searsville Hotel, which was founded by John H. Sears in 1854 to support the local logging industry. It was owned by the Spring Valley Water Company. In the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the dam suffered a "fingers-width" crack in the concrete at the east end, however this was patched.
The 65-foot-tall (20 m) and 275-foot-wide (84 m) Searsville Dam consists of a series of interlocking concrete boulders that resemble a massively steep staircase. After leasing the reservoir for recreational use for 50 years, the Stanford Board of Trustees closed public access to Searsville Lake in 1975 in forming the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The reservoir has lost over 90% of its original water storage capacity as roughly 1.5 million cubic yards of sediment has filled it in. Searsville Dam does not provide potable water, flood control, or hydropower. The elevation of the reservoir is 341 ft (104 m).
The dam poses an impassable barrier to migrating salmonids which is significant because the San Francisquito Creek watershed hosts the most viable remaining native steelhead trout (coastal rainbow trout) (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) population in the South San Francisco Bay. Although anadromous or seagoing steelhead trout still spawn below Searsville Dam, they can no longer run above Searsville Dam to spawn. Corte Madera Creek was described as an historic steelhead trout spawning stream by Skinner in 1962. However stream resident coastal rainbow trout, run up from Searsville Reservoir to spawn in upper Corte Madera Creek and its tributaries, enabling this native fish to survive above the dam as well. A May 2002 steelhead trout migration study reported Searsville Dam as the only complete barrier to migration on mainstem San Francisquito Creek (construction of a fishway in 1976 resolved passage at the Lake Lagunita diversion dam 2.5 miles below Searsville Dam), and that elimination of the Searsville dam could restore ten miles of anadromous steelhead habitat.
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Wikipedia