Littlerock Dam to Let Good Times Flow Again : Recreation: Popular site featuring a 110-acre lake is scheduled to reopen Friday after a costly renovation.

The stage is set for Friday’s grand reopening of 71-year-old Littlerock Dam, a drama that rewrote history, took two years to produce, cost ticket-buyers a whopping $20 million and is almost certain to play to enthusiastic audiences.

The script was written by the state of California, which for more than half a century has demanded that the multiple-arch dam--one of 17 built in the West during the early 1900s--be reinforced to prevent its collapse in an earthquake.

The dam and the 110-acre lake it creates are at the edge of the Angeles National Forest, just southeast of Palmdale, only two miles from the shaky San Andreas Fault.

Engineers finally came up with a solution that pleases everyone but dyed-in-the-wool history buffs. It’s a giant stairway of roller-compacted concrete that hides the distinctive arches but shores up the dam and allows it to store twice as much mountain runoff.

The lake behind the dam has long been the centerpiece of a popular recreation area that annually attracts 300,000 visitors. After being kept out for two years, the public, beginning Friday, will again be admitted to the scenic retreat.

Visitors will find many new amenities, including a ramp for launching fishing boats, freshly paved parking lots, concrete pathways for wheelchair visitors, 18 overnight campsites, plenty of sun-shaded picnic tables and a historic photo display.

The visitors will also find a less pleasant surprise--an entrance fee. Before the dam area was closed, the U. S. Forest Service, which manages the grounds, did not charge admission.

For the first two weeks after Friday’s grand reopening ceremony, that policy will continue. But beginning July 7, park-goers will have to pay $4.75 per car or truck. Motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians will pay $1.20 per person. The money will be used to offset county and federal government expenses.

“We’ve always had the ability to charge,” said Diane McCombs, a Forest Service recreation officer. “Now, with all the new facilities that have gone in, we’re going to operate it the way it should be.”

Despite the new fees, Forest Service officials are worried that they’ll have to turn away some visitors when the park is filled. That was often necessary on summer weekends even before the dam area was spruced up.

Under the revamped park plans, McCombs said, the gate will probably be closed after about 550 vehicles enter the park.

“I think we’re going to hit capacity often,” she said. “People have been waiting two years for this to open up. Saying no is going to be hard.”

State officials have been waiting far longer for the make-over of Littlerock Dam. The project has been stalled by seemingly countless bureaucratic disputes and court battles, and these regulators are pleased to see that the work is finally finished.

“We believe the repair of the dam is fantastic,” said Charles Keene, an environmental specialist with the California Department of Water Resources. “We’ve been looking to do that ever since the 1930s.”

Keene, who has been involved in the project since 1987, said the work has yielded winners in three arenas:

* State officials are now assured that the next earthquake is far less likely to destroy the dam.

* The dam’s owners--the Palmdale Water District and the Littlerock Creek Irrigation District--will be able to capture and store more winter runoff and decrease their reliance on imported supplies from Northern California.

* Outdoor recreation enthusiasts will have a much nicer park in which to enjoy water sports, camping, hiking and off-road vehicle riding.

Even so, Keene concedes that if the dam did not already exist, the state today probably would not allow it to be constructed where it was.

“Obviously, the location of the dam, so close to the San Andreas Fault, would not be one of the optimal sites . . . in Southern California,” he said.

Earthquake safety was probably not a primary concern when the 170-foot-tall dam was erected between 1922 and 1924 to capture water flowing from the mountains into Littlerock Creek. High desert farmers used this water to irrigate their land.

The dam was the tallest and one of the last of 17 such multiple-arch structures designed by architect John S. Eastwood. Another of his projects, Big Bear Lake’s Bear Valley Dam, has also undergone seismic strengthening.

Although Eastwood’s multi-arch design was sturdy enough for most locations, dam safety experts feared that it would not withstand the side-to-side ground-shaking that can occur in an earthquake.

Lacking the funds for major renovation, the water districts that own Littlerock Dam kept state regulators at bay by making minor repairs, hiring consultants and challenging the legality of regulators’ demands, state officials said. While the dispute wore on, the state limited the amount of water that could be stored behind the dam.

By 1988, however, the appeals were exhausted, and the state ordered the water districts to shore up the dam or breach it so that it could no longer hold water.

The districts finally abandoned their fight, sold certificates of participation, obtained state grants and set developer fees to raise funds for the renovation of the dam and recreation area.

The cost of the project, initially estimated at $8 million, soared eventually to more than $20 million, in part because federal officials required the dam’s owners to replace sensitive wetland areas that the renovation work had destroyed.

The elimination of the distinctive arches cost the dam its listing in the National Register of Historic Places. A permanent photo display near the entrance of the recreation area shows the dam in its original glory.

The renovated dam may not be as decorative, but with its added 12 feet in height, the lake behind it can be filled with up to 3,500 acre-feet of water. Before the renovation, the maximum allowed was 1,700 acre-feet.

The state Department of Fish and Game has agreed to stock the lake with rainbow trout.

When the first fishing poles drop into the revived lake, Nolan Negaard will breathe a small sigh of relief. During his six years on the Palmdale Water District’s board of directors, Negaard has spent long hours grappling with the dam restoration project.

“I’m pretty tired of it,” he said last week. “It’ll be neat to hand the rest of this over to the Forest Service. It’s going to be a good facility.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Littlerock Renovation

New facilities at Littlerock Dam Recreation Area will open Friday. To make improvements, the spillway was raised 12 feet. Facilities such as a new boat ramp, picnic and camping facilities were added. (see newspaper for illustration)