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| USACE, Fort Worth District posted #OTD [Dec 10] in 1951 deliberate impoundment began at Whitney Lake. The main dam and spillway were completed eight months earlier in April. |
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| W Boz, Aug 2021 |
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| USACE_recreation |
As with many dams in Texas and Oklahoma, water supply is one of the purposes of this dam. It has two 15mw generating units. [tshaonline]
It was funded for flood control and power generation. But after the drought in the 1950s, water conservation was added to its function.
The 17,694' (5.4km) long dam is an earth embankment with a large concrete spillway. The spillway crest "(top of ultimate power pool)" is at 533'. 533' is also the conservation pool level. The flood pool is at 571', and the maximum design level is two feet higher. "The tops of the dam are at elevation of 584.0 feet and 580.0 feet above mean sea level for the concrete dam and the earth embankment, respectively." [twdb]
I've never seen a "top of ultimate power pool" specification before. Normally one sees a power pool elevation that is significantly below the conservation level. They have to quit generating power if the elevation drops below that because the head is too small for the turbines to function properly. In this case, it seems the turbines have to shut down if the head becomes too large.
I could not find a capacity figure for the spillway.
"All that water is held back by what is described as a rolled earth, concrete and steel structure that totals 17,695 feet long, 1,674 feet [510m] of that being the concrete structure, is 166-feet [51m]-tall and at the top is 34-feet 7.3m]-wide. But at the base, Beasley said, the concrete, reinforced by huge steel rebar, is 735-feet [224m]-thick." Each Kaplan turbine is supplied water by a 16' (5m) diameter penstock. "The [2017] upgrade resulted in an increase of from 20,700 kW to 37,000 kW in each generator at a 6-percent reduction in production cost....Except for internal parts like brushes and ball bearings, every piece of both Allis-Chalmers turbine and generator systems is exactly what was installed originally." [kwtx]
Note that this graph is water storage, not elevation. We can see the "bumps" caused by the heavy rains Texas had in the Summer of 2025.
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| WaterDataForTexas |
I did find an elevation graph. It easily handled the rains of 2025 since the flood pool is 571'.
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| WaterData |
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| WacoHistory The dam provides flood control for Waco. |
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| Fort Worth District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers posted |
One issue with flood control dams is to control development along the conservation pool for recreation. It is important that all such development be designed to withstand flooding. Because the main purpose of the dam is to flood those areas during heavy rains. The development is typically things like boat ramps, park benches, pavilions, etc. that can easily be power washed and returned to use after a flood. And campgrounds so that people can move out of the area during heavy rains.
This was the master plan for use of land between the conservation and flood pools.
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| USACE_public_meeting |
This is the new master plan released in 2017.
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| USACE_final_report |
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