Qualla: Rollins Dam https://qualla.com/rollins-dam en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Rollins Dam https://qualla.com/rollins-dam Rollins Dam: Introduction https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the water drops eighty feet in summer, the ghosts come back. Old roads surface from beneath Rollins Reservoir like lines on a draining map, and mine tunnels open their mouths along the Greenhorn banks -- remnants of the Gold Rush swallowed whole when the dam filled in 1965. One of those tunnels, the Numitor, was established by Warren Pierce in 1884. It sits now under sixty-six thousand acre-feet of water that irrigates farms, powers turbines, and fills the taps of Nevada and Placer counties. The reservoir exists because a country doctor saw what drought could do to people, and spent his life trying to fix it.

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Image: Luciaarreola | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Rollins Dam: The Doctor's Crusade https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dr. Jarret Laben Rollins was a physician, but water consumed his public life. Practicing in the Sierra foothills, he watched farmers struggle with crops that withered and cattle that thinned because dry farming was unpredictable in this climate. He was also a prohibition leader, ...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-the-doctors-crusade.mp3 0:06 2 full Rollins Dam: Rio de Oso https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. Spanish explorers named it Rio de Oso -- Bear River -- when they surveyed the area in 1822. By the 1860s, miners had transformed the valley. A state-operated fish hatchery stood where the Greenhorn end of the reservoir sits today, built by John Thorp and James Smith, evidence tha...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-rio-de-oso.mp3 0:06 3 full Rollins Dam: Building the Wall https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. Construction began in July 1963 under the direction of Ebasco Services, with Paul Hardeman, Inc. as general contractor. The project was part of the larger Yuba-Bear Hydroelectric Project, a sixty-five-million-dollar bond measure that voters approved in 1962 to bring flood control...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-building-the-wall.mp3 0:06 4 full Rollins Dam: Mercury and Memory https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Gold Rush left more than tunnels beneath the water. Mercury, used to extract gold from ore, leached into the watershed and concentrated in the food chain. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment now limits fish consumption from the Northern Sierra Nevada Foothill...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-mercury-and-memory.mp3 0:06 5 full Rollins Dam: A Living Reservoir https://qualla.com/rollins-dam/ Photo credit Luciaarreola, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today Rollins Reservoir spreads across 1.3 square miles of the foothills, its power plant generating 12.15 megawatts that feed into the PG&E grid. Combined with the other NID facilities, the district produces about 375 million kilowatt-hours annually. But the reservoir's identity...

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]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/c/y/rollins-dam-wp/9qcy-rollins-dam-a-living-reservoir.mp3 0:06 6 full