Twin Lakes Dam (National ID # CO02045) is a dam in

Lake County, Colorado ''Lake County'' is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,436. The county seat and the only municipality in the county is Leadville. The highest natural point in Colorado and the entire Rock ...

, about 13 miles south 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 ...

. The earthen dam was constructed in 1978 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 ...

with a height of 53 feet and a length at its crest of 3150 feet. The dam is owned and operated by the Bureau as one element of its larger "transbasin" Fryingpan-Arkansas Project, which transfers available water from Colorado's West Slope across the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

to the more arid, and more populated, East Slope. The reservoir it creates, Twin Lakes, is an enlargement of a natural glacial lake. It has a surface area of 2700 acres and a maximum capacity of 141,000

acre-feet The acre-foot is a non- SI unit of volume equal to about commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water, and river flows. An acre-f ...

. Recreation includes boating, fishing for trout, and camping at five Forest Service campgrounds in the area (Dexter, Lakeview, Parry Peak, Twin Peaks and White Star).

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*, the first Twin Lakes Dam (1898-1989) {{authority control Dams in Colorado Reservoirs in Colorado United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Buildings and structures in Lake County, Colorado Dams completed in 1978 Historic American Engineering Record in Colorado Bodies of water of Lake County, Colorado 1978 establishments in Colorado