Walk the Rim Trail this week and you'll notice the tower is shorter than it was in June. Not gone. Not disguised behind scaffolding the way construction usually hides itself. Just visibly, permanently shorter, with concrete rings sawn off in sequence like someone slicing a layer cake from the top down. If you've done laps around the Lafayette Reservoir for years, part of what you're looking at right now won't exist by the time you finish reading this.
The tower has been the reservoir's fixed point since 1929, the thing that shows up in the background of every family photo taken near the dam, the silhouette regulars use to judge how far they've gone on the Lakeside Nature Trail's 2.7 paved miles or the Rim Trail's steeper 4.7. This summer it's being cut down by 40 feet, and the part locals should understand isn't just what's happening to the structure. It's that the project has three separate finish lines, and only the first one lands before winter.
Ten Weeks, Thirteen Rings
Crews began the visible work in early July, starting by removing the tower's roof and operating house with cranes and a barge, then working down through the concrete stem itself, sawing off roughly a dozen rings about three feet tall each. East Bay Municipal Utility District has said that phase runs about ten weeks and is on track to bring the tower to its new, shortened height around August 21, which is essentially now.
That's the part most people will see finished this year. It is not the part that means the tower is back in service.
A Decade of Saying No, and Losing
This retrofit did not appear out of nowhere this summer. EBMUD has been coordinating with the City of Lafayette on the tower's seismic risk since 2015, and the fight over what to do about it has been going on in public meetings for years. A group of Lafayette residents with professional engineering and architecture backgrounds volunteered to independently review EBMUD's design and concluded the tower could be retrofitted at its existing height, arguing that shortening it might actually increase seismic risk downstream rather than reduce it. The City Council backed that position and asked EBMUD to hold off.
EBMUD didn't. The agency's position has been that the tower, built in 1929 for a dam that ended up 33 feet shorter than originally planned, is now too tall for the structure it sits on, and that a crack in an earthquake would knock out the reservoir's only safe way to release water. California's Division of Safety of Dams categorizes the downstream risk from a Lafayette Tower failure as extremely high. The flood inundation mapping tied to that designation reaches the Lafayette BART station, the Lafayette Police Department, and at least one K-8 school. That's the argument that ultimately overrode years of local pushback and a citizens' committee that wanted the landmark preserved as-is.
What You'll Actually Notice on the Loop
For the person doing their usual weekday walk, the practical impact has been modest by design. EBMUD has kept the heavy work to weekdays specifically to limit disruption to weekend use, and there are no planned vehicle closures tied to the tower project itself. What you will run into is intermittent flagging near the Lakeside Nature Trail and the barge ramp area, with occasional 10 to 15 minute delays for pedestrians and vehicles while crews move equipment across the path. Demolition debris has been trucked out using the Acalanes Road onramp, a route chosen specifically to avoid sending construction traffic through downtown Lafayette.
The one change that's hit regular visitors harder is picnicking. Site reservations were unavailable from February through July 2026 because of the construction footprint, with EBMUD saying it would open select dates back up as the schedule became clearer. If you're planning a group gathering at the reservoir this fall, it's worth confirming current availability before you assume the tables you've used before are open the way they used to be.
There's also a wastewater collection system replacement running concurrently, covering the sanitary sewer lift station and piping that serves the Visitor Center, Ranger Residence, and Maintenance Building. That project is scheduled from fall 2025 through fall 2026 and is a separate, unrelated piece of infrastructure work that happens to be sharing the same calendar window as the tower project, which is part of why the reservoir has felt more under construction than usual this year.
Three Finish Lines, Not One
Here's the piece that's easy to miss if you only skim the headlines. EBMUD's own project updates lay out three distinct milestones, and they land months apart.
The tower reaches its new, shortened height around August 21, 2026. That's the visual change, the one people driving or walking past will register first.
The new metal operating house, designed to echo the look of the century-old original, goes on top of the shortened tower by November 2026. Before that can happen, crews have to finish new floor supports inside the existing structure. Once the operating house is in, the tower will look essentially complete.
Looking complete is not the same as being back in service. The underwater slide gates and electric motor operators that actually let EBMUD control water releases won't be installed until EBMUD's next permitted work window, which opens in spring 2027. Full commissioning and testing come after that, and EBMUD's own timeline puts the tower back to full operational status by fall 2027, a full year after the version you'll see standing there this winter.
So if a neighbor tells you the reservoir tower project wraps up this fall, they're half right. The shape will be finished. The function won't be.
The Run, the Swallows, and What's Actually Sentimental About This
If you're registered for the Lafayette Res Run for Education this October, running the 5K, 10K, or the Reservoir Challenge around the 2.7-mile paved loop, you'll be doing your laps sometime between October 10 and 18, right in the window when the tower has its new height but likely still lacks its operating house, which isn't targeted until November. You'll be running past a structure mid-transformation, not one that's finished changing.
EBMUD has also had to account for the reservoir's other residents during construction. Swallows that return to nest in the tower every year prompted enough public concern that EBMUD addressed it directly at a February community meeting, confirming the birds will be able to return once the work is done, and in the meantime the agency installed netting to prevent nesting during active construction. Biologists on site have also worked to relocate woodrat middens found in the work area, alongside monitoring for species like the California red-legged frog and the Alameda whipsnake that share the reservoir's watershed.
None of that changes the deadline pressure or the safety math behind the project. It's just a reminder that a landmark residents fought for years to protect is still, even now, being handled with more care than a standard construction job usually gets, right down to where the birds nest.
What This Means If You Live Here
The reservoir isn't closing. It never was. What's changing is permanent, and it's happening on a longer clock than the visible construction suggests. If your routine includes the loop, expect the flagging and minor delays to continue through the rest of this year, expect the tower to look done well before it's actually back in service, and if you're planning a picnic reservation or watching for the Res Run in October, build in the possibility that some of the reservoir's usual rhythms are still catching up to where they used to be.
This is the kind of thing that only shows up if you're paying attention to the place day to day rather than passing through it. That's the same lens we bring to the rest of Lafayette and the wider East Bay, whether it's a construction timeline at the reservoir or the finer details of a home's condition before it goes on the market. If you're thinking about buying or selling anywhere in Lafayette, Piedmont, Oakland, or Berkeley, Teri Carlisle & Alexandra Dierkx would be glad to talk through what's actually happening in your corner of the East Bay. Request a complimentary home valuation to start the conversation.
