By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
Currently, there are discussions on the new state laws requiring every man-made lake, including Lake Arrowhead, to be drainable in case of some type of emergency that might require the removal of the water from the lake. Discussions are underway on how to accomplish that.
That discussion reminded me of the talks, fears and community disruption and eventual construction plans that led to the building of the new, modern downstream dam that created Papoose Lake decades ago.
The building of Lake Arrowhead Dam in the early 1900s.
Although Papoose Lake wasn’t built until the late 1970s, only a few longtime residents remember the ups and downs of the problems with building the dam and lake. You could say the history of the mountain’s newest lake actually begins with the construction of Lake Arrowhead Dam, which began 80 years before, back in the 1890s.
Lake Arrowhead was built in stages and incurred construction difficulties, including a leaking core wall that took several engineers and several years in the early 1900s to figure out how to repair it. At the time, according to Gordon W. Dukleth from the Division of Safety of Dams (DSOD), Lake Arrowhead Dam was finally completed in 1922, after over 30 years of planning and construction. However, the problem with it, which resulted in the construction of Papoose Lake, began about 50 years later.
During the Sylmar Earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, the failure of the Van Norman Dam endangered millions of lives. “After the Sylmar Earthquake in 1971, all 29 privately owned hydraulic-filled dams in the state were ordered inspected and only two were found to be safe,” said Dukleth at the time.
During the summer of 1973, Lake Arrowhead Dam underwent extensive testing. In August, the downstream property owners were notified of the dangers to them and to the casual users of the forested area as far away as Mojave Forks Dam. The 675-foot-long, 150-foot-tall Lake Arrowhead Dam was declared to be unsafe in an earthquake having an intensity of 6.5 or greater on the Richter Scale by Pioneer Consultants of Redlands.
A fun map of Lake Arrowhead, showing the many reasons for vacationing there.
The Lake Arrowhead Dam sits within close proximity to two faults, the San Andreas Fault, eight miles to the west, and the San Jacinto Fault, only 13 miles away. However, without an earthquake, the dam was determined to be safe. That was good news to both the downstream property owners and the property owners around the lake.
The report, however, indicated that, after a serious earthquake, boaters and swimmers in Lake Arrowhead would also be endangered if the dam collapsed. However, property above the lake’s waterline wouldn’t suffer damage from the dam’s collapse, although the 6.5 earthquake that damaged the dam probably would result in residential damage in the area as well.
The DSOD concluded that guaranteeing the safety of the dam and downstream, remedial dam strengthening work was required to be performed. Those repairs would take time, both in design and execution. The plans envisioned by the DSOD required that the lake be lowered 70 feet below normal lake level to reduce the hazard (pressure on the dam) until the repairs were made and to perform the work on the dam after the repairs were engineered and the engineering plans and subsequent repairs would probably take years. This statement outraged the property owners.
The Lake Arrowhead Property Owners Association sent out a “call to action” in October 1973 to write letters to public officials informing them of the ramifications of the report. The property owners filed a “class action lawsuit that inhibited the lake owners from taking unilateral action with little concern for the property owners’ interest and welfare.”
Lake Arrowhead in the 1960s, before Papoose Lake was constructed.
During a Dec. 11, 1973, Department of Water Resources meeting at the San Bernardino Convention Center, Samuel B. Nelson told 300 to 400 persons, “When the big earthquake hits, a hydraulic-filled dam such as Lake Arrowhead turns to liquid. Lake Arrowhead holds about 48,000 acre-feet of water, making it about two-thirds the size of Silverwood Lake. If it turned to liquid, that wall of water could damage or destroy everything before it. Even if there were no loss of life, should the dam break, property values would be destroyed, for it would take a long time to rebuild the dam and even longer for rainfall to refill the lake.” It was again suggested that the water level in the lake be lowed by 70 feet to permit reinforcement of the old dam.
Many locals decried that scenario and proclaimed the dam higher, thicker and stronger than the consultants estimated. The timing was poor, as well, because the Chicago Group that had purchased the lake three years previously was being foreclosed on by Boise Cascade, its former owners.
Controversy immediately arose regarding who was going to pay for the estimated $5 million in repairs. Would it be the 3,000 small property owners of homes and vacation houses around the lake? How could they afford such an expense? Or should it be Boise Cascade (or the Chicago group) since the question was up in the air as to who actually owned the lake and dam at any particular moment of this foreclosure. Or should it be the 35 homeowners downstream from the dam on Little Bear Creek and Deep Creek that would be wiped-out if the dam broke?
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