Sugar Loaf Dam is a dam in Lake County of mid-Colorado, west of

Leadville The City of Leadville is a statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,602 at the 2010 census and an estimated ...

. It has a height of feet and is over long at its crest, impounding the Lake Fork of the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

near its headwaters. The earthen dam was one of five reservoir dams completed from 1965 to 1968 by 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 ...

as part of the larger water diversion project named the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. The project was authorized in 1962 by President Kennedy and was completed in 1981. The Fry-Ark diverts water across the continental divide from the Colorado River basin. This water is delivered to the more arid plains east of the Rocky Mountains. Although the predominant use is agricultural, some water is available to several cities east of the continental divide, including:

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

La Junta La Junta is a home rule municipality in , the county seat of, and the most populous municipality of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,322 at the 2020 United States Census. La Junta is located on the Arkansas Ri ...

, Lamar. Water is diverted from the West Slope's

Fryingpan River The Fryingpan River is a tributary of the Roaring Fork River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 18, 2011 in Eagle and Pitkin counties in Colora ...

basin through a series of interconnected tunnels and small diversion dams into the Charles H. Boustead Tunnel. The Boustead runs water underneath the Continental Divide before discharging it into Turquoise Lake. Water then leaves Turquoise Lake via the Mt. Elbert Conduit, which runs nearly to the Mt. Elbert Forebay, then dropped down over in elevation to the hydro-electric Mt. Elbert Power Plant. Turquoise Lake is the reservoir created by the dam. It has a surface area of and a capacity of . The lake and its surrounding land provide various recreational activities for visitors in both the summer and winter.

References

{{authority control Dams in Colorado Reservoirs in Colorado United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Buildings and structures in Lake County, Colorado Dams completed in 1968 Bodies of water of Lake County, Colorado