Joe Pool Lake (Trinity River Basin)
Joe Pool Lake (formerly Lakeview Lake) is located in the southern part of the Dallas - Fort Worth Metroplex encompassing parts of Tarrant, Dallas, and Ellis counties, on Walnut Creek and Mountain Creek, which is a tributary of the Trinity River. Joe Pool Lake was named after Joe Pool, a congressman from the Oak Cliff area of Dallas who represented this district from 1963 until his death in 1968. Pool was highly influential in the passage of legislation and funding of the lake. The project to build Joe Pool Lake initiated by a promise made in 1961 by Joe Pool and was carried out by a citizens committee called the Lakeview Planning Council.
The project was approved by Congress in 1965 and known as Lakeview Lake until 1982 when it was renamed to the present name. Actual construction began in 1977 and was completed in December 1985. Impoundment of water began in January 1986 and the lake was filled by June 1989. The dam is formed by an earth-fill embankment with a maximum height of 108.5 feet above the streambed and a total length of 4.2 miles, including a concrete spillway 50 feet wide. The lake is currently operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for municipal water supply, flood control, and recreational purposes. The top of the dam is at an elevation of 564.5 feet above mean sea level. Maximum designed water surface may reach 559.5 feet above mean sea level. The uncontrolled emergency spillway is broad crested with an elevation of 541 feet above mean sea level. According to data from U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (1985 survey), at the top of the flood control pool, the elevation is 536 feet above mean sea level, the lake covers 10,940 acres and stores 304,547 acre feet water. At elevation of 522 feet above mean sea level (top of conservation pool), the lake measures 7,470 acres of water surface with a storage capacity of 176,895 acre feet. The dam controls a total drainage area of about 304 square miles.