Leesville 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 ...
in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
used for
hydroelectric power generation
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...
in conjunction with
Smith Mountain Lake
Smith Mountain Lake is a large reservoir in the Roanoke Region of Virginia, United States, located southeast of the City of Roanoke and southwest of Lynchburg. The lake was created in 1963 by the Smith Mountain Dam impounding the Roanoke River. ...
as a pump storage project. It is located southeast of
Roanoke, and southwest of
Lynchburg.
Smaller and lower than Smith Mountain Lake, Leesville Lake covers and contains of water at
full pond. The lake is long with around of shoreline. The reservoir lies in a broad valley nestled in the
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...
of rural southwestern Virginia of the
Appalachian chain. Before the lake's creation, farming and logging were the primary industries.
Power generation
Initial proposals were made in the late 1920s to dam the
Roanoke River
The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the App ...
and the Blackwater River at the Smith Mountain gorge to generate electricity. Construction of the
Smith Mountain Dam
Smith Mountain Dam is a concrete arch dam located on the Roanoke River in Virginia, creating Smith Mountain Lake. The dam was built by Appalachian Power (a division of American Electric Power) between 1960 and 1963 for the purposes of pumped-storag ...
began in 1960 and was completed in 1963.
The dam produces hydro-electric power mostly during hours of peak demand on the
American Electric Power
American Electric Power (AEP), (railcar reporting mark: AEPX) is a major investor-owned electric utility in the United States, delivering electricity to more than five million customers in 11 states.
AEP ranks among the nation's largest gen ...
system. Water passes from Smith Mountain Lake through generators to Leesville Lake, producing power. In times of low demand, the generators are used as pumps to reverse the flow and return the water to Smith Mountain Lake.
This takes advantage of the more or less constant output of steam generation plants in off-peak periods. In its partnership role with Smith Mountain Lake generating power, Leesville Lake has a maximum refill rate of per hour and a maximum drawdown rate of per hour. Normal fluctuation consists of on average with an absolute maximum of , allowing Leesville Lake to avoid the drastic drawdowns of other area lakes.
Recreation and development
Since the 1960s, the area around Leesville Lake has remained relatively rural and remote with mostly corn, tobacco, small family farms and other agriculture. The limited early residential developments around the lake consisted largely of family farms. Since about 2004, however, residential growth has begun to expand rather quickly and lakefront homes and communities now dot the shoreline. Boat traffic on the lake remains low relative to nearby Smith Mountain Lake,
Kerr Lake
Kerr Lake /kɑr/ (officially John H. Kerr Reservoir, also known as Bugg's Island Lake) is a reservoir along the border of the U.S. states of North Carolina and Virginia. It is impounded by the John H. Kerr Dam, constructed between 1947 and 1952 t ...
and
Lake Gaston
Lake Gaston is a hydroelectric reservoir in the eastern United States. Part of the lake is in the North Carolina counties of Halifax, Northampton, and Warren. The part extending into Virginia lies in Brunswick and Mecklenburg counties. Lake Gas ...
.
Leesville Lake is becoming a popular recreational area. Fishing is very popular, especially for
striped bass
The striped bass (''Morone saxatilis''), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has al ...
. The state record striped bass was caught out of Leesville Lake in 2000. Boating,
water skiing
Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires suffic ...
,
wakeboarding
Wakeboarding is a water sport in which the rider, standing on a wakeboard (a board with foot bindings), is towed behind a motorboat across its wake and especially up off the crest in order to perform aerial maneuvers. A hallmark of wakeboardin ...
, and riding personal watercraft are also common activities.
Access to Leesville Lake is primarily by way of
U.S. Route 29
U.S. Route 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida to the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland in the Southern United States, connecting the Florida Panhandle to the Baltimore-Washington me ...
, although
State Route 43 and
State Route 40 provide access to the north and south sides of the lake, respectively.
External links
The Leesville Lake Association websiteLeesville Lake VASML website
{{authority control
Bodies of water of Bedford County, Virginia
Bodies of water of Pittsylvania County, Virginia
Reservoirs in Virginia
Bodies of water of Campbell County, Virginia
Roanoke River