By Steve Scauzillo, San Gabriel Valley Tribune | Link to article
A lone boat on a dock on what’s left of Huntington Lake, now a dry lake bed. The Fresno-area lake is one of six reservoirs that powers Big Creek, a hydroelectric facility run by Southern California Edison. Photo courtesy of Paul Griffo/SCE.
Snowmelt entering Big Creek’s hydroelectric powerhouses has slowed to a trickle. Reservoirs sit at their lowest levels ever.
The 102-year-old central-California complex owned and operated by Southern California Edison lost 80 percent of its hydroelectric power this year, a direct result of a persistent drought that has wiped clean the Sierra Nevada snowpack and produced an eerie silence inside Big Creek’s 27 damns and nine powerhouses.
“This is definitely the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Andrew McMillan, operations manager for Edison’s massive hydro plant, a historic project situated between Yosemite and King’s Canyon financed by Henry Huntington in 1913 to send power to his Pacific Electric Red Cars.
