The repair that has kept the Vacation Beach summer dam out of the Russian River for two summers has grown, and the Guerneville park district that owns it is looking for outside help to run the job.
The Russian River Recreation and Park District issued a request for proposals Sept. 4 for a project manager to take the repair through design, permits, bidding and closeout. Proposals were due Sept. 21. The district’s schedule called for its board to consider an award Monday, Oct. 5, and to sign a contract by Monday, Oct. 12. The district’s board meetings page lists no meeting on Oct. 5. The board’s next regular meeting is at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, at the Russian River Senior Center, 15010 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville.
Neighbors, meanwhile, are organizing. Mark Ryle started a change.org petition Sept. 27 asking Sonoma County officials to make the repair a priority. It had 108 verified signatures Sunday. Ryle said in an email that the group behind it, the Fix the Vacation Beach Dam Community Coalition, has about 125 members who live in Vacation Beach, along with downtown merchants and the Russian River Chamber of Commerce.
The dam belongs to the district, not the county. The district is a special district run by a five-member volunteer board. Sonoma County is responsible for the seasonal summer crossing at the dam.
A bigger job
An I-beam upright on the Neeley Road side of the dam failed Aug. 29, 2024, letting water out of the pool behind it. In a January 2025 letter, the state Division of Safety of Dams wrote that the dam “may not be reinstalled until the repair work is satisfactorily completed and DSOD gives written approval to store water.”
The district announced May 12 that it had received the state’s final signatures on its repair plan. The state inspected the dam again May 21. The district’s June 11 update said newly identified repairs fell outside the work the state had approved, that a previously covered section of the dam would have to be accessed and assessed, and that it had not yet received the state’s inspection report.
In July, district staff told the board that an annual inspection had found concerns beyond the repair itself. The board noted that earlier efforts to find a project manager had failed, and that the project “has grown beyond what can reasonably be managed entirely in-house,” according to the meeting minutes. On Aug. 12, the board voted 4-0 to approve the request for proposals.
The request splits the work in two. One part is the repair at uprights 5 and 6 that the state has overseen since the 2024 failure. The other is maintenance at uprights 5 through 0, buried under river sediment, which could extend to replacing uprights 4, 3, 2 and 1. The district expects a complicated permitting process with several agencies for that part. The goal, the request says, is a dam with “full accessibility for future repairs and maintenance.”
The manager the district hires won’t supervise construction. The request says the district would hire someone else for that if needed.
No date yet
The district’s dam page names no installation date. In June, District Manager Amanda Benton told Wine Country Gazette that “we’re likely looking at extensive repairs and cannot estimate an installation date.”
Her report for the board’s Sept. 16 meeting says she was setting up a meeting with the state Division of Safety of Dams for the dam’s annual inspection.