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 ...

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 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 regions of the world, 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 Pennsy ...

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 Ap ...

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 g ...

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 ...

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 Ga ...

. Leesville Lake is becoming a popular recreational area. Fishing is very popular, especially for striped bass. 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