Keith Sebelius Lake, formerly known as Norton Reservoir, is a man-made

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

Prairie Dog Creek Prairie Dog Creek is a stream in the central Great Plains of North America. A tributary of the Republican River, it flows for through the American states of Kansas and Nebraska. Geography Prairie Dog Creek originates in the High Plains of no ...

in northwest Kansas. Built and managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, it is used for flood control, irrigation, recreation, and local water supply. Prairie Dog State Park is located on its shore.

History

The effects of a 1935 flash flood of the Republican River and its tributaries, including

, led the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to include the creek in its plans for flood control. The

Flood Control Act of 1944 The Pick-Sloan Flood Control Act of 1944 (P.L. 78–534), enacted in the 2nd session of the 78th Congress, is U.S. legislation that authorized the construction of numerous dams and modifications to previously existing dams, as well as levees acros ...

approved and the

Flood Control Act of 1946 The Flood Control Act of 1946 was passed by the United States Congress on July 24, 1946; to authorize 123 projects including several dams and hydroelectric power plants like Old Hickory Lock and Dam in Tennessee and the Fort Randall Dam in South Da ...

authorized development of a reservoir on the creek as part of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program. Construction of Norton Dam began in December 1961, and the initial storage of water in Norton Reservoir started in October 1964. In March 1958, the nearby community of

Norton, Kansas Norton is a city in, and the county seat of, Norton County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,747. History Norton was founded in 1872. Like the county, it was named for Capt. Orloff Norton. The f ...

secured a contract with the U.S. government to receive 1,600 acre-feet of water annually. In 1963, the Kansas state government granted the community a water right to that amount of storage in the reservoir. Norton began to use the reservoir as a municipal water supply in September 1965. In 1981, the

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...

renamed the reservoir Keith Sebelius Lake after retiring

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

and Norton native

Keith Sebelius Keith George Sebelius (September 10, 1916 – August 5, 1982) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican. He became active in politics following World War II and was later appointed to t ...

Geography

Keith Sebelius Lake is located at (39.8041721, -99.9320688) at an elevation of . It lies in northwest Kansas in the

High Plains High Plains refers to one of two distinct land regions: * High Plains (United States), land region of the western Great Plains *High Plains (Australia) The High Plains of south-eastern Australia are a sub-region, or more strictly a string of adja ...

region of the Great Plains. The reservoir is located entirely within Norton County. The reservoir is impounded at its northeastern end by Norton Dam.

is both the reservoir's primary inflow from the southwest and its outflow to the northeast.

U.S. Route 36 U.S. Route 36 (US 36) is an east–west United States highway that travels approximately from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado to Uhrichsville, Ohio. The highway's western terminus is at Deer Ridge Junction, an intersection i ...

and Kansas Highway 383 run concurrently east-west north of the reservoir. Kansas Highway 261 runs north-south between U.S. 36 and Prairie Dog State Park on the reservoir's north shore. The city of

Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...

lies northeast of the reservoir.

Hydrography

The surface area, surface elevation, and water volume of the reservoir fluctuate based on inflow and local climatic conditions. In terms of capacity, the Bureau of Reclamation vertically divides the reservoir into a set of pools based on volume and water level, and it considers the reservoir full when filled to the capacity of its active conservation pool. When full, Keith Sebelius Lake has a surface area of , a surface elevation of , and a volume of . When filled to maximum capacity, it has a surface area of , a surface elevation of , and a volume of . The streambed underlying the reservoir has an elevation of . Since the reservoir's initial flooding, sedimentation has gradually accumulated on the reservoir bottom thus raising its elevation.

Infrastructure

Norton Dam is a zoned earth-fill embankment dam with rock

riprap Riprap (in North American English), also known as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armour (in British English) or rubble, is human-placed rock or other material used to protect shoreline structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion. ...

on its upstream face. It has a structural height of and a length of . At its crest, the dam has an elevation of . A

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure th ...

structure controlled by three radial gates is located at the southeast end of the dam. Outlet works at the northwest end of the dam manage outflow into Prairie Dog Creek and the city of Norton's municipal water supply.

Management

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation maintains and operates the reservoir and Norton Dam. The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

provides water regulation procedures for flood control. Downstream canals and structures which use portions of the reservoir's water for irrigation are managed by Almena Irrigation District No. 5. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWP) manages the surface of the reservoir and of land around it as the Norton Wildlife Area.

Parks and recreation

The KDWP operates the Prairie Dog State Park on the reservoir's north shore. It includes boat ramps, camping facilities, a hiking trail, and a swimming beach. Keith Sebelius Lake is open for sport fishing year-round. Hunting is permitted on the public land around the reservoir although it is restricted in certain areas.

Points of interest

The KDWP preserves two vintage 19th-century buildings in Prairie Dog State Park: a one-room schoolhouse and the last standing original adobe house in Kansas. The park also hosts a growing prairie dog town.

Wildlife

Fish species resident in the reservoir include bluegill, channel catfish, crappie,

flathead catfish The flathead catfish (''Pylodictis olivaris''), also called by several common names including mudcat or shovelhead cat, is a large species of North American freshwater catfish in the family Ictaluridae. It is the only species of the genus '' ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, bu ...

saugeye The sauger (''Sander canadensis'') is a freshwater perciform fish of the family Percidae that resembles its close relative, the walleye. The species is a member of the largest vertebrate order, the Perciformes.Jaeger, Matthew. 2004. Montana's Fi ...

spotted bass The spotted bass (''Micropterus punctulatus''), also called spotty, or spots in various fishing communities, is a species of North American freshwater fish belonging to the sunfish family (Centrarchidae) of the order Perciformes. It is noted fo ...

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

, and wiper. Game animals living around the reservoir include

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

quail Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...

cottontail rabbit Cottontail rabbits are the leporid species in the genus ''Sylvilagus'', found in the Americas. Most ''Sylvilagus'' species have stub tails with white undersides that show when they retreat, giving them their characteristic name. However, this ...

turkeys The turkey is a large bird in the genus ''Meleagris'', native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocellat ...

, and

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

. The reservoir is surrounded almost entirely by

shortgrass prairie The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (''Bouteloua gracilis'') and buffalograss ('' Bouteloua dactyloides''), the two less domi ...

References

External links

Almena Unit
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Keith Sebelius Reservoir / Norton Wildlife Area
Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism
Norton Dam
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Prairie Dog State Park
Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism {{authority control Protected areas of Norton County, Kansas Sebelius Lake Dams in Kansas United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1964 Bodies of water of Norton County, Kansas