Gibbons Creek Reservoir (sometimes referred to as Gibbons Creek Lake) is 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 ...

cooling

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 Gibbons Creek in the

Navasota River The Navasota River is a river in east Texas, United States. It is about 125 miles (201 km) long, beginning near Mount Calm and flowing south into the Brazos River at a point where Brazos, Grimes, and Washington counties converge.''Merria ...

basin, 20 miles (32 km) east of

College Station College station or College Station may refer to: Transportation *College station (MetroLink), a St. Louis light rail station in Saint Clair County, Illinois, United States *College station (PNR), a Philippine National Railways station in Los Baño ...

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 ...

, United States. The dam and lake are managed b
Texas Municipal Power Agency
(TMPA), which uses the reservoir as a cooling pond for a coal-fired power plant generating

electricity 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 ...

for the cities of

Bryan Bryan may refer to: Places United States * Bryan, Arkansas * Bryan, Kentucky * Bryan, Ohio * Bryan, Texas * Bryan, Wyoming, a ghost town in Sweetwater County in the U.S. state of Wyoming * Bryan Township (disambiguation) Facilities and structur ...

, Denton, Garland, and Greenville (all of whom have municipality-owned electric companies). The reservoir was officially impounded in 1981. Gibbons Creek Reservoir is a popular recreational destination due to its location near the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area. The nearby power plant was mothballed indefinitely by TMPA in January 2019 due to the high cost of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

-powered electricity when compared to cheaper

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

. TMPA had been trying to sell the plant since 2016.

Fish populations

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

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 ...

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" as is common in Texas, is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and ...

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, ...

, Tilapia,

white crappie The white crappie (''Pomoxis annularis'') is a freshwater fish found in North America, one of the two species of crappies. Alternate common names for the species include goldring and silver perch. is named for the fish. The genus name ''Pomoxis ...

, and

black crappie The black crappie (''Pomoxis nigromaculatus'') is a freshwater fish found in North America, one of the two types of crappies. It is very similar to the white crappie in size, shape, and habits, except that it is darker, with a pattern of black sp ...

. The water has standing

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

and aquatic

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

but generally is rather

turbid Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air. The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality. Fluids can ...

. Its shoreline is covered with native

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

mixed with

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

, and other

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region consi ...

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

Recreational uses

Boating Boating is the leisurely activity of travelling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether Motorboat, powerboats, Sailing, sailboats, or man-powered vessels (such as rowing and paddle boats), focused on the travel itself, as well as sp ...

and

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

are very popular. The steam power plant on the southwest shore of the lake constantly pumps in warm water that keeps this lake a viable fishing spot year-round, even when other lakes in the area become too cold in the winter months. Recreational fishing and other activities on this lake are regulated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

References

External links

Gibbons Creek Reservoir

Texas Municipal Power Agency

Gibbons Creek Reservoir - Texas Parks & Wildlife
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbons Creek Protected areas of Grimes County, Texas Reservoirs in Texas Bodies of water of Grimes County, Texas Cooling ponds