Lake Anna
Lake Anna is one of the largest freshwater inland reservoirs in Virginia, covering an area of, and located south of Washington, D.C., in Louisa and Spotsylvania counties. The lake is easily accessible from Fredericksburg, Richmond, Charlottesville, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and is one of the most popular recreational lakes in the state.
History
The reservoir is formed by the North Anna Dam on the North Anna River at. In 1968, Virginia Electric and Power Company purchased of farmlands in three counties along the North Anna and Pamunkey rivers. The aim was to provide clean, fresh water to help cool the nuclear power generating plants at the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station adjacent to the lake. By 1972, the lake bottom was cleared of all timber, and the dam was nearing completion. It was projected to take three years to completely fill the lake, but with the additional rainfall from Hurricane Agnes, the lake was full in only 18 months. The first communities began to spring up around the lake at that time, and now some 120 different communities surround its shores. In June 1978, the first of the two reactors went into commercial operation. The second unit followed in December 1980.Description
Lake Anna is approximately long from tip to tip, with of shoreline. The lake is divided into two sides by three stone dikes. The public side is roughly, while the private side is roughly.The private side is formed of three main bodies of water, connected by navigable canals. This side has no marinas or public access ramps; only property owners and North Anna Power Station employees have access to the waters on the private side.
The public side has several marinas and boat launches, including a boat ramp at an adjacent state park. The public side sees significantly higher boat traffic compared to the private side, especially on summer weekends.
The public side is known as the "cold" side because it provides water to cool the generators at the power plant; the private or "hot" side receives warm water discharge from the power plant. The private side can be substantially warmer than the public side, especially near the discharge point, where it can be too hot for swimming. The private side has an extended water sports season. Some water circulates back out of the private side into the public side through underground channels; consequently, the public side is warmer in the southern area near the dam. In the winter, some fish migrate to these warmer waters.
Preliminary steps to add a third reactor have led to protests by environmentalists and property owners, who fear a subsequent increase in the water temperature and a decrease in the water level, particularly on the private side. According to Dominion, the water discharged from the plant is usually about warmer than the intake water.
North Anna Dam
The dam creating the lake, North Anna Dam, is a and earthen embankment dam. It is wide at its crest and sits at an elevation of above sea level. The dam's spillway is located in the center of its body and is wide, containing three main and radial gates. Two smaller wide and tall gates on the outer edges of the spillway section maintain normal discharges. The normal elevation for the reservoir is. The dam's hydroelectric power plant is located on the west side of the spillway and is supplied with water via a penstock. The plant consists of two small open runner turbine-generators, the larger with a 775 kW capacity and the smaller rated at 225 kW for a combined installed capacity of 1 megawatt.Wildlife
Fish species present in Lake Anna include largemouth bass, bluegill, redear sunfish, channel catfish, white catfish, yellow bullhead, brown bullhead, black crappie, white perch, American gizzard shad, threadfin shad, blueback herring, creek chubsucker and white sucker. Striped bass and hybrid striped bass are maintained by stocking. Blue catfish, grass carp and saugeye may be present due to past introduction. As of 2017, the exotic northern snakehead has established a self-sustaining population in Lake Anna.Species of submerged aquatic vegetation in the lake include Hydrilla verticillata, southern naiad and Chara sp. American waterwillow grows as an emergent plant.