High Mountain Dams in Upalco Unit, Clements Lake Dam, Ashley National Forest, 6.5 miles North of Miners Gulch Campground, Mountain Home

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The largest of the Brown Duck Basin dams, the Clements Lake Dam is a representative, though undistinguished, example of clay core/earth fill technology found in the Upalco Unit. Its principal significance derives from its association with the Dry Gulch Irrigation Company. With by far the most extensive network of canals and laterals, Dry Gulch was the largest and most important irrigation company in the Uinta Basin. The company impounded five lakes in the Uintah Unit of the Central Utah Project, but Clements Lake is the only Dry Gulch reservoir in the Lake Fork drainage. As such, it is an integral component of an historically important irrigation system.

Inventoried by: Clayton Fraser and James Jurale Fraserdesign Loveland, Colorado October 21, High Mountain Dams in Upalco Unit, Clements Lake Dam HAER No. UT-42-C (Page 2)

Historical Information

Located at an elevation of feet, approximately miles north of Brown Duck Lake, Clements Lake is the highest of the four Lake Fork River reservoirs and is located closest to the headwaters of the watershed in the Brown Duck Basin. The lake draws from a densely forested drainage of acres. In the Forest Service grnted the Dry Gulch Irrigation Company a special use permit to impound water for irrigation on the lake. Later that year, the company built a small log dam across the lake's natural outlet on its east side, to prove up on the water. In Dry Gulch employed Louis Galloway to survey the dam site and blaze a pack trial from the trailhead at Moon Lake. Using equipment packed on horseback, the Dry Gulch crew built the dam that year.

With a crest length of 680 feet, the Clements Lake Dam is the longest in the basin. It displays typical clay core-earth fill construction, with its upstream face covered with a single layer of flat stones and the lower face with stone riprap. It is proposed that the dam be breached, a spillway formed at its center, and the outlet pipe blocked to lower the lake to its natural level.

Architectural Information

Dam length: 680 feet Dam height: 13 feet Dam width: 8 feet Construct: Earth fill dam with stone riprap facing Lake size: acres; 649 acre-foot maximum capacity; 10 vertical feet maximum drawdown Outlet: 18" pipe with inclined gate; concrete spillway BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION "Preliminary Engineering Report: Stabilization of High Mountain Lakes, Upalco Unit," National Forest Service Report, page 10. William F. Gettleman, "Report on the Lakes and Reservoir of the Headwaters of the Uintah, Whiterocks and Lakefork Rivers, Uintah Project, Utah; February page 18. Clements Lake Reservoir File Roosevelt District Ranger Office, Ashley National Forest, Roosevelt, Utah. Field inspection by Clayton Fraser, July 22, For additional information, see Irrigation Canals in the Uinta Basin, HAER No. UT-30.

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