The San Francisco call., 1898-12-23
BEAR VALLEY
 RESERVOIR
 NOW EMPTY Big Water Supply Has EVaporated. MAY TAKE YEARS TO REFILL LARGE TERRITORY DEPENDED UPON IT FOR WATER. In Addition to the Disastrous Effect of the Shortage There Is Serious Question of Health
 Involved.
MAY TAKE YEARS TO REFILL
LARGE TERRITORY DEPENDED
 UPON IT FOR WATER.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

SAN BERNARDINO, Dec, 22.-The successive seasons of dry weather ex- perienced in the San Bernardino Val ley have at last caused the entire evap- oration of the water in the great Bear Valley reservoir, which supplies the majority of water used in Redlands and the Alessandro region.
 For four years past the waters have been gradually receding. The dam was constructed by F. E. Brown in the early nineties, is seventy feet deep and ordinarily impounds the water back for a distance of six miles. In excessively wet years it extends as far back as nine miles. The lake is fed by the Cienegas in it's bottom and by Grant and Vanduesan creeks, but now both these are dry. This is the first time such a thing has ever occurred, and the effect on the localities dependent upon it and also the length of time that it takes to refill will be anxiously noted.
 Superintendent Glass of the Bear Valley Reservoir Company estimates that 1t will require three years of aver age rainfall to refill it and the outlook for this present winter Is far below normal. Redlands will not suffer ir- reparable damage, as part of its do- mestic supply comes from the Santa Ana River, but the orchards are liable to be retarded considerably, as they have already been on short water ra- tions for year, experimenting the present condition of Bear Valley.
 Besides the disastrous effect of the shortage Of water there is a serious question of health involved when the lake begins to refill. About 10000 peo- pie use Bear Valley water for domestic purposes when it is to be had. Phy- SIcidnS claim that the exposure Of the bottom of the lake to the suns rays will generate disease germs, which, when the water returns, will render 1t impure. To these conditions the fact is added that the lake contains an inn mense number of fish, many of which have died and dried up on the bottom of the lake. The county Health Officer will take steps to prevent the dissemi- nation of disease germs as far as pos sible. There is no doubt that the evap- oration of Bear Valley Lake is one of the most serious effects or the water famine in Southern California.
 Bear Valley lies some twenty-one miles in a straight line to the north east of San Bernardino. It is re- markably large and flat mountain basin, from 6200 to $500 feet above the level of the sea, and has the appear ance of having held at one time lake, whose waters, at an elevation of 125 feet above the bottom, overf1owed at the eastern end into the head of canyon which leads away into the Colorado Desert.
 The present outlet is Bear Creek. which flows through deep and narrow rock bound gorge at the southwestern end of the valley and cutting around Il. n< Cantro1 Mnnnfain ridge. joins the canyon of the Santa Ana River about ten miles above its entrance into San Bernardino Valley.
 At the point of departure of the Creek from Bear Valley a dam was begun in 1S83-completed in 1S84- whereby the basin, which Is twelve miles long and from four hundred yards to a mile in width. was remade into lake with the water at forty feet above the base of the dam. The reservoir has a capacity of over 312.000. GOO cubic feet and at eighty feet above of over 4,000, 000 GOO cubic feet. The dam was built with granite faces. laid in cement, is 125 feet high and cost some $75,000.
 The water shed tributary to this val ley is from forty to fifty-five square miles in area and is in the midst of the heaviest downpour belt in Southern California. The clouds collect around and bank up against the nlsn peaks or San Bernardino and Grayback on the south and then spread over into the Bear Valley watershed. Holding so great an altitude the precipitation Is largely in the form of snow. which on the wooded and shade slopes of the mountains lies for several months.
 The amount of precipitation in Bear Valley, while variable. is generally large in comparison with other locali- ties in the same section of country. In the season of 1SS3-S4 there fell there an equivalent of 100 inches of rain. The Bear Valley canal leads the water from the impounding reservoir to the Yucuipa Reservoir after supplying water for irrigation, whence it is taken into the pipe distributing system of the Redlands settlement. across the arroyo, in which is the dam for the reservoir, and just below the dam twenty-two inch iron pipe carries water to a receiving chamber built or con- crete some three-fourths of mile be- low, from which it goes by four smaller pipe lines to part of the Redlands colony, West Redlands and Terraciha. Gladista and Mount Drew Tract and Mound City.