Did You Know...

...that Lexington Dam saved the city of San Jose, California, from flood damage worth more than the cost of the project within three months of its construction in 1952?

The dam, designed and owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and constructed by Guy F. Atkinson Company, is on Los Gatos Creek. It is a 200-foot-high earth embankment dam, and stores about 20,000 acre-feet. It was constructed during a single season in 1952, at a cost of about $3 million. The original, exclusive purpose of the dam was water conservation - to capture winter storm runoff and use it for recharge of the aquifers underlying the Santa Clara Valley.

Los Gatos Creek is a principal tributary of the Guadalupe River, which flows through the city of San Jose. The winter of 1952-53 was exceptionally wet, and the reservoir behind Lexington filled exactly to spillway level by January 1953. At the same time, the Guadalupe River was at flood stage and lapping at the bridge soffits through the city.

It is estimated that this single act of incidental flood control prevented flood damages of more than $3 million; thus, the dam paid for itself within three months. In 45 years, the project's benefits have included water conservation (with the value of the conserved water escalating from $5 an acre-foot to more than $90), recreation and incidental flood control for the San Jose area.

(reprinted from the USCOLD Newsletter, July 1998, page 3)