McKay Reservoir 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 ...

Umatilla County Umatilla County () is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 80,075. Hermiston is the largest city in Umatilla County, but Pendleton remains the county seat. Umatilla County is part of ...

of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

. It is an impoundment of McKay Creek, a tributary of the

Umatilla River The Umatilla River is an tributary of the Columbia River in northern Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Draining a basin of , it enters the Columbia near the city of Umatilla in the northeastern part of the state. In downstream order, begi ...

. The reservoir is located south of Pendleton on

U.S. Route 395 U.S. Route 395 (US 395) is a U.S. Route in the western United States. The southern terminus of the route is in the Mojave Desert at Interstate 15 near Hesperia. The northern terminus is at the Canada–US border near Laurier, where the road ...

. The reservoir has a capacity of of water.The

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

br>Reclamation Increases Flows from McKay Reservoir
(2003). Accessed 5 Jan 2009. The reservoir and land that immediately surrounds it are designated as the ''

McKay Creek National Wildlife Refuge McKay Creek National Wildlife Refuge is a United States National Wildlife Refuge located between plains and the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. The refuge provides habitat for rare and endangered species and breeding and migratory birds. The la ...

''. The reservoir and creek that it impounds are named for Dr. William C. McKay. McKay was an early settler in the Pendleton, Oregon area. He settled near the mouth of McKay Creek about 1851. The place was originally called Houtama. He died in Pendleton in 1893.Oregon Geographic Place Names, Sixth Edition, Lewis A. McArthur, Oregon Historical Society Press, Portland, Oregon, 1992."

Hydrology

The McKay Dam was built between 1923–1927 as a project of the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, part of the Umatilla Basin Project that had started in 1908 with the nearby

Cold Springs Dam Cold Springs Dam is an earthen dam northeast of Hermiston and south of the Columbia River in Umatilla County, Oregon. The dam impounds the water of the Umatilla River to create Cold Springs Reservoir, a component of the Umatilla Basin Proje ...

. It furnishes supplementary water to Stanfield and

Westland Westland or Westlands may refer to: Places *Westlands, an affluent neighbourhood in the city of Nairobi, Kenya * Westlands, Staffordshire, a suburban area and ward in Newcastle-under-Lyme *Westland, a peninsula of the Shetland Mainland near Vaila ...

Irrigation Districts. The McKay Dam is an impoundment of McKay Creek, a tributary of the

. An

earth-fill dam An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface and ...

with sections of reinforced concrete, it stands 158 feet high and has an active capacity of , of which is used for exclusive

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

. The spillway section of the McKay Dam was modified 1978 through 1979 to increase the capacity from 10,000 to 27,000

cubic feet per second Cubic may refer to: Science and mathematics * Cube (algebra), "cubic" measurement * Cube, a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex ** Cubic crystal system, a crystal system ...

Natural history

The reservoir is jointly managed by the Bureau of Reclamation and the

for irrigation water and a

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

for a variety

wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...

including

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

s, and an abundance of

waterfowl Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which in ...

. Fishing is permitted between March thorough September. McKay’s shallow water marshes and wetlands are also productive for warmwater fish such as

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

crappie Crappies () are two species of North American freshwater fish of the genus ''Pomoxis'' in the family Centrarchidae (sunfishes). Both species of crappies are popular game fish among recreational anglers. Etymology The genus name ''Pomoxis'' ...

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 ...

, sunfish, and

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samu ...

, as well as brown bullhead catfish, and lesser numbers of largemouth and smallmouth bass.Oregon Public Land
McKay Reservoir
BigGame Hunt.net - Accessed 5 Jan 2009

References

External links

Oregon Water Quality Index Report for the Umatilla Basin
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
McKay Creek National Wildlife Refuge
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mckay Reservoir Reservoirs in Oregon Historic American Engineering Record in Oregon Lakes of Umatilla County, Oregon Buildings and structures in Umatilla County, Oregon Protected areas of Umatilla County, Oregon Dams in Oregon United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1927 1927 establishments in Oregon

Hydrology

Natural history

See also

References

External links