- Texas Highland Lakes
The Texas Highland Lakes is a chain of 6 man-made
lake s inCentral Texas formed by severaldam s on the Colorado River as it winds southeast from its headwaters near the border ofTexas andNew Mexico toMatagorda Bay and theGulf of Mexico . The dams provideflood control and are used to generatehydroelectric power .The lakes and dams are (from West to East):
*Buchanan Dam - Lake Buchanan
*Inks Dam -Inks Lake
*Wirtz Dam -Lake LBJ
*Max Starcke Dam -Lake Marble Falls
*Mansfield Dam -Lake Travis
*Tom Miller Dam -Lake Austin The Colorado River, which had a history of major flooding, especially in the City of Austin, was "tamed" by the construction of the dams in the
Texas Hill Country . Engineers used the hills to form the lakes' basins.All of the dams were constructed by the
Lower Colorado River Authority during the 1930s and 1940s, following two unsuccessful attempts to construct a dam upstream from Austin.The City of Austin then constructed
Longhorn Dam and formed a seventh lake in the chain,Lady Bird Lake , in 1960 largely to help beautify the city and to form acooling pond for itsnatural gas -burningpower plant just north of the river.External links
* [http://www.highlandlakes.com/ Highland Lakes]
* [http://floodstatus.lcra.org/ Lower Colorado River Authority]
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