Water is released down the Bradbury Dam spillway at Lake Cachuma on Wednesday.
Bradbury Dam goes with the flow Feb. 8 at Lake Cachuma. Credit: Lael Wageneck / Santa Barbara County Public Works photo

Water was spilling over Bradbury Dam at Lake Cachuma on Wednesday, for the first time in a dozen years.

The flow down the spillway is the most obvious sign of the huge transformation that has taken place at a reservoir that two months ago was less than a third full.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the lake and dam, said in a tweet that the water releases into the Santa Ynez River were being done “to allow for incoming flows.”

Two of the dam’s four gates were opened to let water out of the lake, which is within inches of being full.

Maximum flow from the releases, which were scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., was 4,100 cubic feet per second, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

The bureau in recent days has been releasing water from Lake Cachuma through an outlet at the base of the dam, but this is the first time the reservoir has spilled since 2011.

Cachuma, which was 99.7% full Wednesday afternoon, is a major water source for Santa Barbara County, mainly South Coast communities including Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito and Carpinteria.

“The Bureau of Reclamation essentially is testing their gates as part of their standard operating procedures,” Lael Wageneck, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Public Works Department, told Noozhawk.

Water is released down the Bradbury Dam spillway at Lake Cachuma on Wednesday.
Water is released down the Bradbury Dam spillway at Lake Cachuma on Wednesday. Two of the dam’s four gates were opened to let water out of the lake, which is within inches of being full.

Runoff from the major storm that slammed the county on Jan. 9 pushed Cachuma’s level up 36 feet in just over a day, while the level overall has risen more than 60 feet.

With the lake now essentially full, water purveyors that get part of their supply from Cachuma are expected to get their full allocations this year.

The full reservoir also means that the county, which like most of the California and the West has been enduring a multi-year drought, now has several years of reliable water supply to buffer against future drought shortages.

Click here for the latest status of Lake Cachuma.

— Noozhawk editor in chief Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.