Dam Safety Program

Dams store much of the water for EBMUD customers. EBMUD manages 29 dams. Our main water supply comes from Pardee Reservoir, in the Mokelumne River watershed in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. South of Pardee is Camanche Reservoir, which stores water for flood control and for downstream users. In the East Bay, there are five local water supply reservoirs and 24 open-cut reservoirs that hold treated water. The dams range from 10 feet to 360 feet tall and were built from the late 1800s to the late 1960s.

EBMUD has a comprehensive Dam Safety Program. Engineers monitor dams using instruments, monthly visual inspections and periodic dam safety reviews to prevent loss of life, personal injury and property damage from the failure of dams. The safety of each dam is reevaluated with advances in geotechnical, structural and earthquake engineering and also if there is evidence of seepage or ongoing ground movement. Most of these dams are under the jurisdiction of the California Division of Safety of Dams. Pardee and Camanche Dams are also under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission because they produce hydropower. These regulatory agencies perform independent annual dam inspections.

Over time, EBMUD plans to replace some of its local dammed reservoirs with water tanks after studies verify that smaller tanks provide reduced maintenance costs, better water quality and greater post-earthquake reliability.

Information about dam replacement projects that are underway:

Berryman Reservoir - Berkeley
Estates Reservoir - Oakland
Schapiro Reservoir - El Sobrante
South Reservoir - Castro Valley
Summit Reservoir - Berkeley/Kensington

Information about seismic work on dams EBMUD plans to keep:

Chabot Dam - Oakland
San Pablo Dam - El Sobrante/Orinda

Published Studies and Information on EBMUD Dams

The documents below are PDF files that can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobate Reader, a free software.