San Vicente Reservoir to open Sept. 22
San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside will reopen for fishing and recreation Sept. 22 after a little more than eight years of being closed.
The reservoir, owned by the city of San Diego, shut down to visitors Sept. 2, 2008, so the county Water Authority could raise the height of the reservoir’s concrete dam to increase its water storage. The dam is now at 337 feet.
The Water Authority also constructed a new marina.
San Vicente Dam, built between 1941 and 1943, originally stood at 220 feet and could store up to 90,000 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot — about 326,000 gallons — is the amount of water used by two typical households in one year.
The project to increase the height raised it by 117 feet. According to the Water Authority, it was the tallest dam raising in the United States and the tallest of its type in the world.
The raised dam will store up to an additional 152,000 acre-feet of water, more than doubling the capacity of the original reservoir, the county says.
General boating and fishing permits are needed to enter the reservoir, which will be open Thursday through Monday. Monday will be for fishing only. Wakeboarding and water skiing can be done Thursday through Sunday.
Permits will be available only through Ticketmaster. They are $8 to fish and $7 for boat launches, plus Ticketmaster processing fees.
The new marina the Water Authority built is intended to reduce boat launching wait times and provide picnic table areas and shade structures. The authority said the marina features an improved access road, an expanded boat ramp with six lanes and a parking lot accommodating more than 300 vehicles.
The San Vicente Dam raising was part of the authority’s more than $1 billion emergency storage project. That project has been creating new emergency water storage and pipeline connections to deliver water throughout the region if the county’s imported water supply is disrupted.
San Vicente Reservoir is at 12375 Moreno Ave. in Lakeside.
Karen Pearlman writes for The San Diego Union-Tribune.