Posted by Shawn & Annette in Outdoors, Tuolumne County, Twain Harte News on December 21, 2015
Last year we, amidst the ongoing drought, we experienced explosions coming from the rock at Twain Harte Lake as it gradually cracked like the layers of an onion. This video from BBC2 explains what happened, and how the drought itself was to blame.
When the rock broke, and the lake had to be emptied, we lost over 46 million gallons of water. That’s a lot of water even when you’re not in the middle of the worst drought on record. This equates to roughly 20,664 gallons of water lost per resident of Twain Harte.
The rock/dam was repaired in May, but the ongoing drought could continue the exfoliation that caused the damage in the first place. Outside of removing the rock completely, there’s no guarantee that this can be avoided.
Twain Harte residents have been under water restrictions for several years, with mandatory reduction in water usage of 50% by THCSD (the water resource management department for residents of Twain Harte). Meanwhile, the lake was given 70% of their volume in May directly out of what little remained of our drinking water by TUD (the county source for water, which required only 30% water use reduction). 70% of their volume is roughly 14,600 gallons of water per resident. Under our current reduction requirements, residents use about 100 gallons per day. The lake, then, used roughly 4.8 months worth of water for each resident in Twain Harte by filling up “only” 70% of their capacity.