Water School

Possum Kingdom Lake, located on the main stem of the Brazos River northwest of Fort Worth, was the first water supply reservoir constructed in the Brazos River basin. Located in Young, Palo Pinto, Stephens, and Jack counties, the construction of the Morris Sheppard Dam was begun in 1938 and completed in 1941 with the aid of the Works Progress Administration Program.Possum Kingdom Lake covers an area of 16,716 acres with 219 miles of shoreline. The reservoir holds approximately 556,340 ...

DeCordova Bend Dam and Lake Granbury were constructed by the Brazos River Authority and are maintained and operated by the BRA as a source of water supply.Construction of the project began in December 1966 and was completed in September 1969. The reservoir provides 136,326 acre-feet of storage capacity for conservation of flood and storm waters to meet the requirements of municipalities, industries, agriculture, and mining.  The reservoir has a permitted yield of 64,712 acre feet. ...

Lake Limestone, located on the upper Navasota River in Limestone, Robertson and Leon counties, is a water supply reservoir built by the Brazos River Authority in 1978. Construction of the reservoir was made possible through the sale of water to Texas Electric Utilities to be used by their lignite-burning electric plants in the area. To view a copy of the Lake Limestone state permit, click here.Water from the reservoir is supplied for similar use at a NRG steam-electric plant just east of Lake Li...

A spillway part of a dam that is designed to allow water to flow freely over the dam during floods. Spillways may be used on dams with floodgates as an additional means to control release of water during flooding.  A spillway may also be used as the main area of water release from a dam, allowing water to flow through the spillway only when the reservoir is full.

Floodgates are solid metal barriers in a dam that can be opened to release flood waters downstream.

Allens Creek Reservoir is a planned water storage lake permitted for construction on Allens Creek, a tributary of the Brazos River, in Austin County. The permit to build the lake was originally issued to Houston Lighting and Power (Reliant Energy) in 1974 by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, now known as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).The reservoir was originally to have served as a cooling lake for a nuclear power plant. When Reliant Energy abandoned plan...