Victor Braunig Lake, formerly known as East Lake, is a

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 ...

on Calaveras Creek and Chupaderas Creek 17 miles (27 kilometers) south of

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The reservoir was formed in 1962 by the construction of a dam to provide a

cooling pond A cooling pond is a man-made body of water primarily formed for the purpose of cooling heated water and/or to store and supply cooling water to a nearby power plant or industrial facility such as a petroleum refinery, pulp and paper mill, chemica ...

for a

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many pow ...

to supply additional

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

supply to the city of San Antonio. Victor Braunig (1890-1982) was an employee from 1910 becoming in 1949 the general manager of the San Antonio City Public Service Board, predecessor of

CPS Energy CPS Energy (formerly "City Public Service Board of San Antonio") is the municipal electric utility serving the city of San Antonio, Texas. Acquired by the city in 1942, CPS Energy serves over 840,750 electricity customers and more than 352,585 na ...

. The dam and lake are managed by CPS Energy of San Antonio. Together with Calaveras Lake, Braunig Lake was one of the first projects in the nation to use treated wastewater for power plant cooling. The reservoir is partly filled with wastewater that has undergone both primary and secondary treatment at a

San Antonio Water System The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) is the largest drinking water and sewage utility in Bexar County, Texas, USA. Based in the Midtown Brackenridge district of San Antonio, SAWS draws water from the Edwards Aquifer The Edwards Aquifer is one ...

treatment plant. Braunig Lake also serves as a venue for recreation, including fishing and boating.

Fish and plant life

Braunig Lake has been stocked with species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. Fish present in Braunig Lake include

red drum The red drum (''Sciaenops ocellatus''), also known as redfish, channel bass, puppy drum, spottail bass, or simply red, is a game fish found in the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to northern Mexi ...

hybrid striped bass A hybrid striped bass, also known as a wiper or whiterock bass, is a hybrid between the striped bass (''Morone saxatilis'') and the white bass (''M. chrysops''). It can be distinguished from the striped bass by broken rather than solid horizonta ...

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive, ...

, and

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, but ...

Recreational uses

Thousand Trails Management Services operates a public park facility at the lake. The park features facilities for camping, picknicking, fishing, boating, and hiking. Swimming is prohibited.

References

* ''Powering a City: How Energy and Big Dreams Transformed San Antonio

Catherine Nixon Cooke, Trinity University Press, Nov 30, 2017

External links

Braunig Lake - Texas Parks & WildlifeBraunig Lake Park
* Reservoirs in Texas, Braunig, Victor Geography of San Antonio Protected areas of Bexar County, Texas Tourist attractions in San Antonio Bodies of water of Bexar County, Texas Cooling ponds {{BexarCountyTX-geo-stub

Fish and plant life

Recreational uses

See also

References

External links