Lake Berryessa is known for more than just a place to sightsee. The water from the Monticello Dam is very important because the 526 billion of gallons of water are used for drinking and irrigation.
It also has serves another purpose, which affects a very large portion of the population in northern California. Over 600,000 people reap the benefits of the water. Little did everyone know that the mysterious hole had something to do with providing everyone’s water.
Drones Everywhere
King thought that the circumstances were highly unusual. He said, “I went up there the other day and there were about 15 drones flying around and people taking videos.” “It’s really dramatic to watch.” We can imagine how incredible that must’ve been to witness.
The local authorities were about to investigate and release information on what could have possibly caused this interesting hole in the lake. It wouldn’t take long for not only Evan, but everyone in the community to find out exactly what he had discovered on his adventure.
A Man-Made Lake
If you didn’t already know, California has very few water resources. Lake Berryessa is one of the largest man-made lakes in America. It was created along with Napa's Monticello Dam, and has the beautiful Vaca Mountains all around it.
This provides hydroelectricity to the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay area. Evan Kilkus and others would eventually discover that the same engineers who worked on the lake were to blame for the hole in it.
A Bizarre Spillway
When it rained, the water would rise and could cause a lot of flooding. Something needed to be done to avoid that. The architects made sure that the lake had a spillway in the design of the lake. The spillway was built so that it was set into the walls of the dam, however, this one was very different than any other spillway.
Lake Berryessa is a very narrow lake, so it would have been hard, if not impossible, to build a traditional dam wall with a spillway. It would have cost way too much money to bore into the sides of the mountain surrounding the lake, so the engineers came up with another odd, yet smart solution.
Creating Berryessa
Lake Berryessa is essentially like a living creature. However, it breathes in water instead of air. The engineers who built the lake needed to ensure that the water didn’t flood and also make sure that the dam continued to run into the Putah Creek. The functioning of the local infrastructure depended on it.
The engineers needed to somehow work around the waterways. They needed to somehow create a funnel between Lake Berryessa and Putah Creek which was a difficult task. People didn’t always understand what it was exactly, and for good reason.