The Pellegrini Lake is an

artificial lake 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 ...

located on the

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...

, in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

of Río Negro, near the city of

Cinco Saltos Cinco Saltos is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, located on the eastern side of the valley of the Neuquén River, near the Pellegrini Lake, about from northwest of Neuquén and from Allen. It has 19,819 inhabitants as per the . ...

, at approximately and 270 m

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. This reservoir was originally a natural depressed area, possibly excavated by

wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

erosion, which was later filled with water brought by a derivation channel from the nearby

Neuquén River The Neuquén River () is the second most important river of the province of Neuquén in the Argentine Patagonia, after the Limay River. Rocks of the Neuquén Basin are fossiliferous, and the basin hosts what may become important fields of tight ...

, in order to regulate its flow (since the river had no natural lakes that would fulfill this function). It has mean and maximum depths of 9.4 and 18 m, respectively. It covers an area of 112 km² and has a volume of 1.053×10⁹ m³. The lake is employed for commercial

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 ...

of ''trucha criolla'' (''Percichthys trucha'', a species of

temperate perch The members of the family Percichthyidae are known as the temperate perches. They belong to the order Perciformes, the perch-like fishes. The name Percichthyidae derives from the Latin ''perca'' for perch and Ancient Greek ἰχθύς, ''ichthy ...

) and ''pejerrey'' (''Odontesthes microlepidotus'', a

neotropical silverside The Neotropical silversides are a family, Atherinopsidae, of fishes in the order Atheriniformes. About 112 species in 13 genera are distributed throughout the tropical and temperate waters of the New World, including both marine and freshwater h ...

), as well as sport fishing, recreation and tourism.

Tourism

The tourism can make a little detour of 14 km from the National Route 151, which travels to and from the South region. Pellegrini lake is an important water mirror, which is part of the irrigation work of the Alto Valle of Rio Negro, that is fed from the canal that rises from the imponent dam, Dique Ingeniero Ballester. This canal runs 120 km and gives life to the fruit production that characterize our region. At the Pellegrini lake you can do the most diverse watersports such as swimming, windsurfing, canoeing and sailing. Also you can do different bird sightings and especially have some rest to disconnect from the city life.

Technical data provided by the D.P.A

The Pellegrini lake occupies a natural depression known as the “Cuenca Vidal”. It is created up to the construction of the dam Dique Ing. Ballester, which started in 1915 the diversion of excess irrigation water through the canal regulator “Arroyón” and as a measure to mitigate the large floods of the Río Neuquén through a bypass canal. The Pellegrini lake is an endorheic basin, without a natural water outflow to another basin, so its waters are slightly saline. The bottom level of the lake is 251 m.s.n.m. After the first years of operation of the dam Dique Ing. Ballester, in 1936, the lake that was formed already registered a water level of 267,60 m. Up to this date, that level has small variations around the 272 m elevation.

References

Lago Pellegrini
Secretaría de Energía. República Argentina. Lakes of Río Negro Province Reservoirs in Argentina {{RíoNegroAR-geo-stub