To "tame" the Durance, men have imagined a dam ... A dam to limit the effects of floods, support the water needs for irrigation of the lower river Durance. To build this dam, the Serre-Ponçon site is ideal, even if the impoundment requires the displacement of 1,500 people!
In 1895, engineer Yvan Wilhem established the project. Thanks to "Electricité de France" and the Ministry of Agriculture, construction, declared to be of public utility, began in 1955 and was completed in 1961. It will require 3,000 workers, 19 million m3 of materials, and a 120m high dike. A lake was born and a great tourist site with it! Several villages located in the Durance and Ubaye valleys disappeared.
The maximum coast of the lake is set at 780m. All buildings located at a lower altitude are destroyed. This is the sad fate of the villages of Savines, Ubaye, Rousset and several hamlets.
During the construction of the Serre-Ponçon dam in 1961, the destruction of the St Michel chapel was scheduled, but it was finally saved. Now the chapel stands alone on an islet of a few tens of square meters above the level of the lake. The cemetery was swallowed up, and the chapel walled up. You can still approach it, but under no circumstances enter it.
Today, the Serre-Ponçon dam represents the largest water reservoir in France, with 1.2 billion m3 of water. It is the benchmark site for multi-use water management: energy production, Provence “water tower” with 200 million m3 dedicated to agriculture, drinking water supply , places of nautical activities, land management and floods ... Lake Serre-Ponçon is also the second artificial lake in Europe by its capacity (1.272 billion cubic meters), and the third by its surface area (28.2 km²).
On the administrative side, the lake straddles the departments of Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, in the SOUTH region. 12 towns surround its shore including: Embrun and Savines Le Lac