Electra Lake will be closed to recreation this summer to allow Xcel Energy to repair the 30-year-old dam.
“The public will not have access to recreation from late May into the late fall,” company spokesman Mark Stutz said Monday. “Only people with homes around the lake will be allowed entry.”
Stutz couldn’t give exact dates of construction, which will depend on the weather. But don’t count on picnicking on Memorial Day, he said.
Stagecoach Dam, which holds back more than 22,000 acre-feet of water, was built in the 1980s. The earth and crib-timber structure must be replaced, Stutz said.
Lowering the water to permit construction will leave the public boat ramp high and dry, Stutz said. No boating, swimming, fishing or day camping will be possible, he said.
Electra Lake is 25 miles north of Durango east of U.S. Highway 550.
The lake is fed from Cascade Creek, via a 4,400-foot open-top flume 10 feet in diameter that empties into a 10,000-foot steel pipe leading to Little Cascade Creek. The water then flows into Columbine Lake and ultimately Electra Lake.
As it leaves Electra Lake, water is carried in a 2½-mile pressurized pipeline to a point directly west and 1,000 feet above Xcel’s Tacoma hydro plant on the banks of the Animas River. Under gravity, the water hurtles through the power plant and then into the Animas.
Public Service Co. of Colorado, an Xcel subsidiary bought the power plant and Electra Lake in 1991 as part of purchasing the assets of the Colorado Ute Electric Association.
Xcel Energy provides electricity and natural gas in eight Western and Midwestern states. It serves 3.4 million electricity customers and 1.9 million natural-gas customers.
daler@duangoherald.com
