Lahontan Dam

The Lahontan Dam is a dam situated on the Carson River in the Carson Desert between Carson City, Nevada and Fallon, Nevada in the United States. Its impoundment is known as the Lahontan Reservoir or Lake Lahontan. It is currently operated by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.The Lahontan Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Newlands Project. It is an earthen structure, 162ft high by 1700ft long and contains 733000cuyd of fill. When it was completed in 1915, it was the largest earth-fill dam in the United States. The reservoir receives water from an area of 1450mi2 and provides a storage capacity of 295500acre feet at spillway crest. An additional 23900acre feet can be stored by raising the gates, bringing the total capacity to 319400acre feet.The primary purpose of the dam is to impound water for irrigation use. The site also includes hydroelectric generators with a total capacity of 4,000 kilowatts.HistoryConstruction began as part of the Truckee-Carson Project in 1911 and Lahontan City, Nevada, a company town, was built for the workers. Water distribution for irrigation began in 1916 and in the same year the project was renamed to the Newlands Project.