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Folsom is actually the 9th largest lake capacity-wise in California...so despite a shallow type shoreline, it is quite big. It's also a lake that is almost guaranteed to fill every year (if it were up to nature) due to the American River and Lake tahoe snow melt feeding it.
As far as flood protection, I believe there were rules set up because of one single year since the dam was built that they were afraid of the dam being breached due to the design (poor design) of the gate system.
They actually have been doing a 7 or 800 million dollar retrofit to the dikes and gates and adding a spillway so this won't be an issue. Currently they have rules that state it can only be so full at a given time of year even if it makes no sense (like in a drought year or years). My hope is that with these new gates and higher dikes in place they can allow the lake to fill and going forward we can at least have relatively normal summer recreation as well as maintain our water storage at a higher level.
So reading a bit more on this it seems maybe they need to dump a lot of fresh water into the delta so the salt stays below where they draw water for the aqueduct or other southern areas...?
That doesn't seem like a brilliant design.
Funny about the Auburn dam. We would be so much better off in terms of water supply today if they had gone ahead with it. Good thing this area hasn't grown any in 30 years and had water demand grow in that time either right...?
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