The San Vicente Dam Raise was part of the Emergency Storage Project, a system of reservoirs, interconnected pipelines, and pumping stations designed to make water available to the San Diego region in the event of an interruption of imported water deliveries. Prior to this project, the San Vicente Dam stood 220 feet tall and could store up to 90,000 acre feet of water. Shimmick, under this dam raise project, increased the height of the dam by 117 feet, making it the tallest dam raise in the United States and the tallest dam of its type in the world. The raised dam stores an additional 152,000 acre feet of water, more than doubling the capacity of the reservoir. In addition to the roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dam raise, the work also included foundation grouting, drainage features, outlet works, discharge conduits, a downstream control facility, access roads, and abandonment of the existing outlet works facilities.
