Walk the Lakeside Nature Trail this month and the first thing you'll notice is the tower. It's shorter now, missing the peaked roof and operating house that sat atop it for almost a century, replaced for the moment by scaffolding and a crane parked on a barge. Local news crews have been out there all summer filming the demolition. It's the kind of visual that makes for good television: a landmark literally getting cut down to size.
But if you're the kind of Lafayette resident who does this loop every Saturday morning with a dog or a stroller, the tower isn't actually the thing most likely to interrupt your walk this fall. The louder story and the more disruptive one turn out to be two different projects, and only one of them is getting camera crews.
The Story Everyone's Watching
The tower itself dates to the late 1920s, built as the reservoir's spillway when the dam was still under construction. The original plan called for a much taller dam, so the outlet tower was built tall to match. Partway through construction, engineers found the soil couldn't support a dam that size, the embankment had already begun to shift, and the dam height got scaled back. The tower didn't. For nearly a hundred years it's stood about 170 feet tall, roughly 40 feet more than the finished reservoir actually needs.
That mismatch is what's being corrected now. After the 2017 Oroville Dam emergency prompted California's Division of Safety of Dams to tighten seismic standards statewide, inspectors flagged the Lafayette tower as a risk in a major earthquake. East Bay Municipal Utility District is now spending $14 million to shorten it by 40 feet and reinforce the conduits underneath, bringing it down to roughly 130 feet.
Crews began cutting into the tower in early July, working from a floating platform to saw off the concrete rings section by section, and reached the tower's new, shortened height around August 21. A new metal operating house, designed to echo the look of the original, is going in next, with that work expected to wrap by November. The tower won't be back in full service until fall 2027, since the underwater slide gates and electric motors still need to go in during next spring's construction window.
Here's the part that matters for your weekly walk: EBMUD has said there are no planned vehicular closures tied to this project, and the work itself is largely confined to weekdays, so weekend regulars see very little of it beyond the changed skyline. Demolition debris is even being trucked out via the Acalanes Road onramp specifically to avoid routing through downtown Lafayette. One longtime visitor told CBS San Francisco it felt "kind of sad to see the change," but for someone planning a Sunday loop, the tower project is mostly a spectacle you watch from the trail, not an obstacle you walk around.
The Project Nobody's Covering
The one that actually gets in your way runs alongside it, and it hasn't made the news.
EBMUD is also replacing the aging wastewater system and sewer piping across the Reservoir Recreation Area, work scheduled from fall 2025 through fall 2026. Visible construction activity started ramping up in March, and unlike the tower project, the public notices for this one don't mention a weekday-only limit. Crews have been moving equipment and materials across the paved Lakeside Nature Trail near the barge ramp area to reach the park's exit road, with flaggers stationed at the main gate and along the trail as needed.
What you'll actually run into
The practical effect is intermittent, not scheduled: expect the occasional 10 to 15 minute wait for pedestrians and vehicles while crews move equipment across the trail, timed to construction needs rather than a posted calendar. If you're walking the loop on a random Tuesday or a Saturday morning, this is the project more likely to briefly stop you in your tracks than the tower ever will.
The One Detail Worth a Phone Call
There's a smaller wrinkle that's easy to miss if you're not planning a group gathering. Picnic site reservations at the reservoir were paused entirely between February and July of this year because of the construction footprint. EBMUD's own language on this is conditional: select dates would reopen "as the construction timeline becomes clearer," without a firm date attached. Sites unaffected by the work have continued on a first-come, first-served basis throughout.
If you're hoping to book one of the reserved picnic areas near the dam for a fall birthday or a family gathering, it's worth a call to the reservoir's visitor center before you assume your usual spot is open. The freeze window has technically passed on the calendar, but nothing in EBMUD's public materials confirms full reservation availability has resumed.
The One Sunday Your Usual Loop Won't Be Yours
None of this is why the reservoir will be off-limits for a few hours on Sunday, October 18. That's race day.
The Lafayette Res Run for Education, co-sponsored by the Lafayette Chamber and the City of Lafayette, has been held the third Sunday in October for years, and this fall it lands on the 18th. The event offers a 5K, a 10K, and a 2-mile run or walk, all starting downtown near Lafayette Circle, plus a self-guided Reservoir Challenge that lets anyone walk or run the 2.7-mile paved loop on their own schedule between October 10 and 17.
That last detail is the one to circle. According to the event's own registration page, the Reservoir Challenge specifically isn't available on race day itself, because the reservoir will be closed to everyone except the 10K runners that Sunday morning. If your standing routine is a Sunday walk around the lake, October 18 is the one weekend this fall where that plan doesn't work, and it has nothing to do with any of the construction happening elsewhere in the park.
What This Actually Means for Your Weekly Loop
Put the four pieces side by side and a pattern shows up that the headlines miss. The tower work is the most visually dramatic and the least disruptive to your actual routine, since it's weekday-limited and doesn't touch trail or road access. The wastewater project is the opposite: quieter, unscheduled, and the one most likely to briefly stop you mid-walk on any given day. The picnic freeze is a narrow, practical thing worth a phone call if it applies to your plans. And the race is a single, predictable morning that has nothing to do with construction at all.
If you're planning your fall around this loop, a few things are worth keeping straight:
- The tower's changed silhouette is the headline, but it won't slow down your weekend walk.
- Watch for flaggers near the Lakeside Nature Trail and barge ramp on any day of the week, not just weekdays.
- Call ahead before booking a reserved picnic site this fall rather than assuming last year's availability still applies.
- Block off the morning of October 18 if Sunday is your usual reservoir day.
- The park's gate hours have already shifted with the season, closing around 8:00 PM in September instead of summer's later close, so evening walkers should plan a little earlier.
None of this changes what the reservoir is to the people who live around it. It's still the loop that anchors a lot of Lafayette routines, from the stroller brigade to the trail runners training for October. It's just worth knowing that the story making the news isn't always the one that decides whether your Tuesday walk goes smoothly.
If you're already part of this routine and ever curious about what's happening a few blocks over in the neighborhood, from the reservoir out toward downtown Lafayette, I'm always glad to talk shop about the area I live and work in. And if a move within or into Lafayette is somewhere on your radar down the line, Joanna Chen is a phone call away whenever you're ready.
