Diamond Valley Lake is a man-made offstream reservoir located near Hemet, California, United States. It is one of the largest reservoirs in Southern California and also one of the newest. With 800,000 acre feet (990,000,000 m3) of water, The lake nearly doubled the area’s surface water storage capacity and provides additional water supplies for drought, peak summer, and emergency needs.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California began the $1.9 billion construction project in 1995. Filling of the lake, by way of the Colorado River Aqueduct began in 1999 and was completed in 2003. The lake is currently served and filled by the Inland Feeder.
The lake features three earth fill dams; two on either side of the valley and one on the south rim. Construction of the dams took advantage of nearby materials, and was one of the largest earthworks projects in the United States. Excavation of core materials for the dams resulted in many paleontological finds, all of which are displayed at the Western Science Center at the lake's East end. The lake is open to boating and fishing, along with hiking and other recreational activities around the lake.
Read more about Diamond Valley Lake: Geography, Construction, Paleontological Finds, Recreation
Famous quotes containing the words diamond, valley and/or lake:
“Every time an ashtray is missing from a hotel, they don’t come looking for you. But let a diamond bracelet disappear in France and they shout John Robie, the Cat. You don’t have to spend every day of your life proving your honesty, but I do.”
—John Michael Hayes (b.1919)
“How old the world is! I walk between two eternities.... What is my fleeting existence in comparison with that decaying rock, that valley digging its channel ever deeper, that forest that is tottering and those great masses above my head about to fall? I see the marble of tombs crumbling into dust; and yet I don’t want to die!”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“Will lovely, lively, virginal today
Shatter for us with a wing’s drunken blow
This hard, forgotten lake haunted in snow
By the sheer ice of flocks not flown away!”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)