Fontenelle Reservoir

Fontenelle Reservoir is an artificial

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 ...

located in southwest

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

. It lies almost entirely within Lincoln County, although the east end of the

Fontenelle Dam Fontenelle Dam was built between 1961 and 1964 on the Green River in southwestern Wyoming. The high zoned earthfill dam impounds the Fontenelle Reservoir. The dam and reservoir are the central features of the Seedskadee Project of the U.S. B ...

and a tiny portion of the reservoir are actually in northwestern Sweetwater County. Impounded by Fontenelle Dam, the reservoir acts primarily as a storage reservoir for the U.S.

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

Colorado River Storage Project The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper Colorado River basin. The project provides hydroelectric power, flood control and water storage for participat ...

, retaining Wyoming water in the state as a means of asserting Wyoming's water rights, with a secondary purpose of power generation. Water from Fontenelle Reservoir is used in local industries such as mining and power generation. Although initially projected to provide irrigation water for agriculture, the irrigation component was downgraded after difficulties with efficient irrigation in Wyoming's high semi-desert became apparent. Plagued by chronic leakage problems at the dam, the reservoir was hurriedly emptied in 1965 and 1986 amid concerns about dam failure. The reservoir has facilities for recreation, with boat launching ramps and campgrounds. Fishing is available for

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model us ...

, cutthroat and

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

trout. The land used for the Fontenelle Reservoir and dam was previously the Stepp Ranch, owned by one of the few black ranching families in Wyoming in the 1960s. The Stepps fought for their land in court, but ultimately lost. The land had been in the Stepp family since the turn of the 19th century. ^{/sup>

See also

* List of largest reservoirs of Wyoming
*Black Pioneers, Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier

References

External links

Fontenelle Dam
at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Seedskadee Project
at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Fontenelle Reservoir
at recreation.gov

Lakes of Lincoln County, Wyoming
Reservoirs in Wyoming
Lakes of Sweetwater County, Wyoming
Colorado River Storage Project

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