Saylorville Lake
body of water
Saylorville Lake is a reservoir on the Des Moines River in Iowa, United States. It is located about 11 miles (18 km) upstream from the city of Des Moines, and 214 miles (344 km) from the mouth of the Des Moines River at the Mississippi River. It was constructed as part of a flood control system for the Des Moines River as well as to aid in controlling flood crests on the Mississippi, of which the Des Moines is a tributary. The lake and dam is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District.
At its conservation pool normal level of 836 feet (255 m) above sea level, Saylorville Lake covers an area of 5,950 acres (24 km2) or 9.3 square miles (24.1 km2) and reaches some 17 miles (27 km) upstream. At full flood stage the lake can reach 16,700 acres (68 km2) or 26.1 square miles (67.6 km2) and reach 54 miles (87 km) long. At this Full Flood Pool, any further flow into the lake is channelled over an emergency spillway to the west of the main dam structure. The record high stage for the reservoir was 892.03 feet (271.89 m) above sea level set on July 11, 1993 during the Great Flood of 1993.
The lake is utilized for many recreational activities in the central Iowa area as well, as there is a large state park infrastructure surrounding the area of the lake, notably Jester Park and Big Creek State Park. The Corps of Engineers operates several recreation areas, campgrounds, and boat ramp facilities around the lake.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saylorville Lake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.