Sangchris Lake is a 3,022-acre (12.2 km²) reservoir

Reservoir

A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

 located in Christian

Christian County, Illinois

Christian County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 34,800, which is a decrease of 1.6% from 35,372 in 2000...

 and Sangamon

Sangamon County, Illinois

Sangamon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 197,465, which is an increase of 4.5% from 188,951 in 2000...

 Counties, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. It was created in 1964 by damming Clear Creek, a tributary of the South Fork of the Sangamon River

Sangamon River

The Sangamon River is a principal tributary of the Illinois River, approximately long, in central Illinois in the United States. It drains a mostly rural agricultural area between Peoria and Springfield...

 for recreation and to serve as a source for cooling water for an adjacent electrical generating plant powered with coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

. The lake is no more than 7 miles (11 km) long from headwaters to dam, but so jagged is its shore that the lake's total shoreline measures 120 miles (193 km) in length. Much of the shoreline is now part of Sangchris Lake State Recreation Area

Sangchris Lake State Recreation Area

Sangchris Lake State Recreation Area is an Illinois state park on in Christian and Sangamon Counties, Illinois, United States. The Sangchris Lake makes up a large portion of this state park....

. The nearest town is Kincaid, Illinois

Kincaid, Illinois

Kincaid is a village in Christian County, Illinois. It had a 2010 census population of 1,505.-Geography:Kincaid is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all of it land...

.

As of 2007, the lake and state park are operated by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Illinois Department of Natural Resources

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is a cabinet-level department of the state government of Illinois. It is headquartered in the state capital of Springfield...

, and the adjacent 1,108 megawatt Kincaid Power Station is operated by Dominion Resources

Dominion Resources

Dominion Resources Inc. , commonly referred to as Dominion, is a power and energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia and North Carolina and supplies natural gas to parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and eastern North Carolina...

, an electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 conglomerate. The lake is known for its crappie

Crappie

Crappie is a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. The type species is P. annularis, the white crappie...

, largemouth bass, and striped bass fisheries.

External links

• Illinois DNR - Sangchris Lake