White Rock Lake (Trinity River Basin)
White Rock Lake is located about five miles northeast of downtown Dallas in Dallas County, on White Rock Creek, a tributary of the Trinity River. White Rock Lake is owned and operated by the city of Dallas to supply a small part of the city's municipal water needs and to supply water for condenser cooling at a steam-electric generating plant. Recreational activities are also allowed with the Lake.
In response to a water shortage in Dallas, construction for the dam commenced in March, 1910 and was completed in September of 1911. The reservoir was filled in August, 1912. The Certified Filling No. 75, which authorized the reservoir, was filed on April 29, 1914 with the State Board of Water Engineers by the city of Dallas. White Rock Dam is an earth-fill structure approximately 2,100 feet in length and 40 feet in height. The elevation of the top of the dam is 468.5 feet above mean sea level. The service/emergency spillway is a concrete, broad-crested, uncontrolled weir 450 feet in length at an elevation of 458.0 feet above mean sea level. According to the TWDB 2015 survey, the lake can store 10,230 acre-feet with a surface area of 995 acres at the conservation pool elevation, 457.9 feet above mean sea level. The dam controls a drainage area of about 100 square miles.