Sugar Loaf Dam and Turquoise Lake are east of the
Continental Divide on the Lake Fork of the Arkansas River in Lake County,
approximately five miles west of Leadville, Colorado. Sugar Loaf Dam is an earth filled structure,
has a length of 2,020 feet, a height above river bed of 135 feet, and contains
approximately 1,833,700 cubic yards of material.
In addition to the main
earth fill section of the dam, there is a dike about 6,000 feet to the
northeast. This dike is 475 feet long and 11 feet high. The spillway
has a capacity of 2,920 cubic feet per second and consists of a morning-glory
intake structure, a 6.5-foot-diameter monolithic concrete c
onduit, a chute and
a stilling basin. The outlet works consists of an intake structure with trash racks, a 7-foot-diameter concrete conduit and steel liner,
a gate chamber
housing a 5- by 6-foot high-pressure gate, an 11-foot-diameter concrete conduit
with a steel liner, a 72-inch-diameter steel outlet pipe which bifurcates into
two parallel branches just ahead of the control house for the river outlet, a
river outlet control house with two 3.5-foot-square high-pressure gates for each
branch, and a chute and stilling basin discharging to Lake Fork.
A short
72-inch-diameter steel branch outlet pipe with a bulk head was provided upstream
from the bifurcation for future use, and as on outlet to the Mt. Elbert
Conduit. The capacity of the river outlet is 1,120 cubic feet per second,
and the capacity of the outlet to the Mt. Elbert Conduit is 370 cubic feet per
second.
