The Folsom Dam Joint Federal Project: A Model of Cooperative Partnership
If the levee breaks at Folsom Dam in Sacramento, California’s State Capitol could be engulfed in a 15-foot wall of water. Situated in a valley, at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers, Sacramento’s flood risk is considered the highest of any major city in the nation, according to the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (SAFCA).
This worse case scenario has been the subject of flood control plans since 1986. That was the year a record flood tested Folsom Dam’s outlet capability for accommodating releases in preparation for, or during, an extreme storm. After this flood, a plan was developed to enlarge the eight existing outlets, add two new outlets and raise the dam by seven feet. However, when expected costs eclipsed $600 million by 2005, three times the original estimate, a new plan was needed.
Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), the Department of Water Resources-Reclamation Board and SAFCA then joined together, in an unprecedented collaboration of Federal, State and Local partnership, to form the Joint Federal Project (JFP). The revised plan will build an auxiliary spillway, just south of the main Folsom Dam, to allow for earlier, and larger, water releases from the reservoir during a major storm. The JFP is expected to save seven years in construction time and approximately $1 billion in construction costs. Unparalleled in its scope, the JFP will also address dam safety issues posed by hydrologic (flood), seismic (earthquake) and static (seepage) events. When completed in 2014, the JFP will bring the Sacramento area to a 200-year flood protection.
Congress authorized construction of Folsom Dam on the American River in 1944 as the Central Valley’s key flood control feature. Completed in 1956 by the Corps, ownership of the dam transferred to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, to become a component of the massive Central Valley Project in Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region.
Folsom Dam is a concrete gravity dam, 340 feet high and 1,400 feet long, with two earthfill wing dams flanking the main section. The dam includes one auxiliary dam and eight smaller earthfill dikes.
Last updated: 1/14/08