The Amazing Cleveland Dam & Our Water Supply

The Amazing Cleveland Dam & Our Water Supply

Do you know where our drinking water comes from? Water has been called the source of life, because it is so crucial to our survival in so many ways. Our bodies are mostly composed of water, roughly 70% of our bodies is water! On average you can lose about two litres of water throughout the day, which is why we are encouraged to replace two litres of water per day in your body. The same goes for our environment, not only does it provide drinking water to the wildlife in the area, it is also home to the fish whose whole life depends on that water.

I had the great pleasure of taking my family to The Cleveland Dam over the weekend so I thought it would be nice to share a few cool facts about our local Dam.

The Cleveland dam was completed in 1954 and was named after the first Chief Commissioner of The Greater Vancouver Water District, Ernest Albert Cleveland. It was built to hold the water at Capilano Lake, which is also known as the Capilano Reservoir, and it gets its water from Capilano Mountain through the Capilano River and 11 other Tributary Streams.

The Cleveland dam does not produce hydroelectricity, its sole purpose is to store water. And I was surprised to discover that 40% of Metro Vancouver’s drinking water comes from the Capilano Reservoir. There are three watersheds in Metro Vancouver and they are Capilano, Seymour, and Coquitlam.

The dam has been featured in movies and shows, some recent ones being, The Man in the High Castle, Super Natural, Smallville, the X-Files and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

The public does not have access to the watersheds because that is the best way to ensure a healthy and clean water supply. Although the public does not have access, logging was permitted for a while, but thankfully it was stopped after some protests from many groups in the area.

The Cleveland Dam is in The Capilano River Reginal Park, and if you haven’t been there I highly recommend that you do visit. The dam is one of the major attractions to the park but it also has many other interesting attractions like the hatchery, some cool viewpoints and many walking trails that I will be checking out on my next visit.

Written By

Henry Sanchez
Heating & Plumbing Expert and Dam Explorer!