Overview
Beaver Creek Dam is a Tennessee Valley Authority flood-detention project on Beaver Creek in the southwestern corner of Virginia, near the Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia area. Completed in 1965, the earthen dam stands about 85 feet high and 1,588 feet long and was built to reduce flood risk and support local recreation. Unlike TVA mainstem hydro lakes, Beaver Creek is not a power-generating facility.
TVA operates Beaver Creek as a flood-detention dam with no permanent reservoir pool. Storage is held only as needed during high flows (about 5,020 acre-feet of flood storage), so there is no year-round lake surface comparable to storage or navigation reservoirs. A city-managed park near the dam offers walking trails that cross the creek and dam area, along with picnic and sports facilities.
Nearby Clear Creek Reservoir, adjacent to the Beaver Creek project, provides additional local recreation including fishing access associated with a public golf course. Visitors use the park setting for walking, picnicking, and informal outdoor recreation rather than large-lake boating. Regional fisheries and outdoor recreation guidance is available through state wildlife agencies in Virginia and Tennessee.
Because Beaver Creek does not maintain a normal full-pool lake, there is no summer/winter guide curve like those on TVA storage reservoirs. Water is detained during floods and then released; monitoring local conditions and TVA notices matters most during heavy rainfall when the detention pool rises. Catalog entries that once listed a permanent Alabama pool elevation for this slug reflected a data mismatch with the TVA Beaver Creek project.
Current Conditions
- 7-day trendRisingLatest movement can differ from the seven-day trend.
- 7-day changeNo meaningful change
- 30-day changeDown 0.90 ft
- Drought conditionsNo Drought
About This Lake
Learn how this lake is managed, what affects its water level, and where Lake Insights gets its data.
Beaver Creek Reservoir is reservoir on the Beaver Creek managed by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).