Twin Buttes Reservoir is an artificial lake located about 6 mi (9.7 km) southwest of the town of San Angelo

San Angelo, Texas

San Angelo is a city in the state of Texas. Located in West Central Texas it is the county seat of Tom Green County. As of 2010 according to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total population of 93,200...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 and immediately upstream from Lake Nasworthy

Lake Nasworthy

Lake Nasworthy is a small municipal lake located in San Angelo, Texas. The lake is named for John R. Nasworthy who sold the land the lake is currently located on to the city...

. With the financial support of the Upper Colorado River Authority

Upper Colorado River Authority

The Upper Colorado River Authority or UCRA was created in 1935 by the Texas Legislature as a quasi-governmental entity to manage the Colorado River as a water resource in Tom Green County and Coke County, Texas. The authority has since been extended to include Schleicher County and Concho County...

, construction on Twin Buttes Dam to form the reservoir was completed in 1963. The dam is an unusual one – it dams the Middle and South Concho Rivers separately; a stabilization channel runs between the two sides of the lake.

Twin Buttes Reservoir was established to provide flood control

Flood control

In communications, flood control is a feature of many communication protocols designed to prevent overwhelming of a destination receiver. Such controls can be implemented either in software or in hardware, and will often request that the message be resent after the receiver has finished...

, irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

, water conservation

Water conservation

Water conservation refers to reducing the usage of water and recycling of waste water for different purposes such as cleaning, manufacturing, and agricultural irrigation.- Water conservation :Water conservation can be defined as:...

, and a primary drinking water

Drinking water

Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...

 source for San Angelo and the surrounding communities in Tom Green County. The lake also serves as a recreational venue for fishing, boating, and swimming. The dam and reservoir are owned by the United States Bureau of Reclamation

United States Bureau of Reclamation

The United States Bureau of Reclamation , and formerly the United States Reclamation Service , is an agency under the U.S...

, and are managed by the City of San Angelo.

Fish populations

Twin Buttes Reservoir has been stocked with species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. Fish present in the lake include largemouth bass

Largemouth bass

The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...

, white bass

White bass

The white bass or sand bass The white bass or sand bass The white bass or sand bass (MoroneIt is the state fish of Oklahoma.- Range :White bass are distributed widely across the United States, particularly in the midwest. They are very abundant in Pennsylvania and the area around Lake Erie...

, catfish

Catfish

Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

, and 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...

.