Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County, California. This reservoir
is formed by the Monticello Dam, which provides water and hydroelectricity to
the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The lake was named for the first European settlers in the Berryessa
Valley, José Jesús and Sexto "Sisto" Berrelleza, who were granted Rancho Las
Putas in 1843. Prior to its inundation, the valley was
an agricultural region, whose soils were considered among the finest in the
country. The main town in the valley, Monticello, was abandoned in order to
construct the reservoir. This abandonment was chronicled by the
photographers Dorothea Lange and Pirkle Jones in their book Death of a Valley.
Construction of Monticello Dam began in 1953, completed in 1958, and the
reservoir filled by 1963, creating what at the time was the second-largest
reservoir in California after Shasta Lake. The Monticello Dam with Lake
Berryessa, Putah Diversion Dam with Lake Solano, and associated water
distribution systems and lands are known collectively as the Solano Project,
which is distinct from other federal water projects in California such as the
Central Valley Project. The lake has been heavily used for
recreational purposes and encompases over 20,000 acres when full. The
reservoir is approximately 15.5 miles long but only 3 miles wide. It has
approximately 165 miles of shoreline. It has a seaplane landing area that is open
to the public. One of the larger islands supported a small plane landing area but
was closed in the early 1970s after the FAA issued a safety report.
Near the dam on the southeast side of the reservoir is an open bell-mouth
spillway, 72 feet in diameter, which is known as the Glory Hole. The pipe has a
straight drop of 200 feet, and the diameter shrinks down to about 28 feet.
The spillway has a maximum capacity of 48.000 cfs. In 1997 a woman was killed
after being pulled inside the spillway. The lake was the site of one of the
infamous Zodiac murders on September 27, 1969.
Hydrology The lake is fed by the head waters to
the 576-square-mile Putah Creek watershed. It has a storage capacity of
1,602,000 acre feet, making it one of the larger reservoirs in California.
Though the lake and Monticello Dam are in Napa County, the water yield of up to
about 245,000 acre-feet per year from the Solano Project is largely contracted
to Solano County Water Agency and managed under subcontract by Solano
Irrigation District for use in Solano County. The water is used for
agricultural, municipal, and industrial purposes under a contract for use of
water rights held by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. Another contract allows
for use of up to 1,500 acre-feet of water per year around Lake Berryessa in
Napa County. The 25-year contracts were renewed in 2009. The Monticello Dam
Powerplant built in 1983 generates up to 12 MW of hydroelectric power. A
settlement of water right claims to Putah Creek was made in 2000. Known as
the Putah Creek Accord, it allowed for scheduled instream flows in lower Putah
Creek flowing to the Yolo Bypass. Water rights for the watershed above
Monticello Dam were amended in 1996. Climate
The National Weather Service has maintained a cooperative weather station
at the lake since November 1, 1957. Records show that the area has hot,
mostly dry summers and cool, wet winters. Normal January temperatures are
a maximum of 57.7 °F and a minimum of 36.1 °F. Normal July temperatures are a
maximum of 93.8 °F and a minimum of 57.3 °F. There an average of 80.1 days with
highs of 90 °F or higher and an average of 28.0 days with lows of 32 °F or
lower. The record high temperature was 115 °F
on July 24, 2006. The record low temperature was 13 °F on December 22,
1990. The wettest year was 1983 with 56.94
inches and the driest year was 1976 with 7.78 inches. The most precipitation in
one month was 21.33 inches in January 1995. The most precipitation in 24 hours
was 5.29 inches on December 31, 2005. Snowfall is very rare, but 0.4 inches
fell in January 1974. Recreation
Popular activities include fishing, waterskiing, jet skiing, pleasure
boating, kayaking and canoeing, hiking, road bicycling, motorcycle pleasure
biking, birding, wildlife observation, picnicking, and swimming. The Lake
Berryessa Seaplane Base is located on the lake's surface, and an estimated 200
seaplane operations were reported between September 2011 and September
2012. It is used for seaplane landings and splash-ins.
Lake Berryessa is a swimming and water skiing site for enthusiasts. The narrow
portion of the reservoir, nearest to the Monticello Dam, is referred to as the
"Narrows," and is sometimes busy with boaters on holidays and weekends.
There are several resorts with marinas at the lake, as well as nearby Lake
Solano County Park located west of Winters, California. Day use areas
include Oak Shores and Smittle Creek. There are swimming areas closed to boats
and other watercraft, as well as several hiking trails.
Lakeshore lands, facilities, and concessions in Napa County are managed
by the Bureau of Reclamation. However, five of the seven resort concessions
that expired in 2009 have not yet become fully operational. Based on rules
against exclusive occupancy of federal recreation lands, about 1,300 long-term
resident trailers were removed from the resorts when the 50-year concession
contracts expired. In the following years, public usage of the lake dwindled
due to government delays in formulating a future plan.
= Cedar Roughs Wilderness = Adjoining the Lake Berryessa
Recreational Area is the recently designated Cedar Roughs Wildlife Area.
The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act of 2006 set
aside the former study area of 6,350 acres located 1.8 miles past Pope Creek
bridge on the Pope Creek arm of Lake Berryessa. The wildlife area can be
accessed by car or boat, although there are no maintained trails. Hiking can be
difficult as more than half of the wildlife area consists of Sargent's
cypress, which covers 3,000 acres and is relatively pure genetically. It is the
second most widely distributed cypress in California, and was named for Charles
Sprague Sargent, the founder and director of Harvard University's Arnold
Arboretum and author of the 14-volume Silva of North America. The area is
jointly managed by the Bureau of Land Management and California Department of
Fish and Game. Flora and fauna
Notable plants in the area include sergeant cypress, white alder, leather
oak, Jepson's navarretia, and Bridge's brodiaea.
Fish species in Lake Berryessa include bluegill, brown trout, channel catfish,
chinook salmon, green sunfish, kokanee, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass,
rainbow trout, spotted bass, white catfish and Sacramento pikeminnow. The
introduced species of carp, is also present and feeds on organic matter,
water snails, bloodworm, fresh water mussels as well as their own eggs.
The east side of the lake has a 2,000-acre Wildlife Management Area
managed by the California Department of Fish and Game that protects wildlife
habitats for such species as mountain lion, black-tailed deer, western
rattlesnake, raccoon, skunk, osprey and golden eagle.
1969 murder Further information, see the full
article on the Zodiac Killer In 1969, the lake became the site of one
of the infamous Zodiac murders. On the evening of September 27, Pacific Union
College students Bryan Hartnell and Cecelia Shepard were picnicking at Lake
Berryessa on a small island connected by a sand spit to Twin Oak Ridge. A man
approached them wearing a black executioner's-type hood with clip-on
sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a
white 3-by-3-inch cross-circle symbol on it. He approached them with a gun, which
Hartnell believed to be a .45. The hooded man claimed to be an escaped
convict from Deer Lodge, Montana, where he had killed a guard and stolen a car,
explaining that he needed their car and money to go to Mexico. He had brought
precut lengths of plastic clothesline and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell,
before he tied her up. The killer checked and tightened Hartnell's bonds,
after discovering Shepard had bound Hartnell's hands loosely. Hartnell
initially believed it to be a weird robbery, but the man drew a knife and
stabbed them both repeatedly. The killer then hiked 500 yards back up to
Knoxville Road, drew a cross-circle symbol on Hartnell's car door with a
black felt-tip pen, and wrote beneath it: "Vallejo7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by
knife", the dates of the killers first two crimes and the date and time of the
crime he had just committed. At 7:40 p.m., the killer called the Napa
County Sheriff's office from a pay telephone to report this latest crime.
The phone was found, still off the hook, minutes later at the Napa Car Wash on
Main Street in Napa, only a few blocks from the sheriff's office, yet 27 miles
from the crime scene. Detectives were able to lift a still-wet palm print from
the telephone but were never able to match it to any suspect.
After hearing their screams for help, a man and his son who were fishing in a
nearby cove discovered the victims and summoned help by contacting park
rangers. Cecelia Shepard was conscious when law enforcement officers from the
Napa County Sheriff's office arrived, but lapsed into a coma during transport
to the hospital and never regained consciousness. She died two days later,
but Hartnell survived to recount his tale to the press. Napa County Sheriff
Detective Ken Narlow, who was assigned to the case from the outset, worked on
solving the crime until his retirement from the department in 1987.
See also Berryessa Snow Mountain National
Monument List of dams and reservoirs in
California List of lakes in California
List of lakes in the San Francisco Bay Area
List of largest reservoirs in the United States
List of largest reservoirs of California Wragg Fire
References External links
US Bureau of Reclamation Lake Berryessa Website
Lake Berryessa Recreation Areas map [1]
[2] [3]
[4] Lake Berryessa Fishing
UC Davis page on the history of the valley
Chris, Fish. "The Glory Hole". - information, images, and construction
information about the Lake Berryessa glory hole.