Alcoa Lake (Brazos River Basin)

Alcoa Lake is located seven miles southwest of Rockdale in Milam County, on Sandy Creek, a tributary of Yegua Creek which is a tributary of the Brazos River.  The lake is owned and operated by the Aluminum Company of America for industrial and recreational purposes.  Water Right Permit (No. 1608) authorized the dam and impoundment on February 13, 1952.  Construction was started on February 17, 1952, and the dam and spillway were completed in October 1952.  Impoundment of water began in early 1952.  However, the gates on the spillway were not installed until January 31, 1953.  The 12½-mile pipeline from the Little River pumping plant to the lake was placed in operation on January 13, 1953.  Currently, the lake has a capacity of 15,650 acre-feet and a surface area of 914 acres at the top of the spillway gates.  The lake was maintained at near-spillway level by pumping from Little River when necessary, and the water was used for condenser-cooling purposes at a steam-electric generating station.  The drainage area was only six square miles, but this was an off-channel storage.  Most of the water was pumped from Little River.