Little Seneca Lake is a 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 near the Boyds

Boyds, Maryland

Boyds, Maryland is an unincorporated community in rural Montgomery County, Maryland, located north of Washington, DC. Its ZIP Code is 20841.According to the United States 2000 Census, the ZIP Code Tabulation Area for the town of Boyds covers an area of and has a population of 2,025...

 community in Montgomery County

Montgomery County, Maryland

Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of Maryland, situated just to the north of Washington, D.C., and southwest of the city of Baltimore. It is one of the most affluent counties in the United States, and has the highest percentage of residents over 25 years of age who hold post-graduate...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

. The lake was created by the construction of a dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 on Little Seneca Creek

Little Seneca Creek

Little Seneca Creek is an stream in Montgomery County, Maryland, roughly northwest of Washington, D.C. The creek drains portions of Clarksburg, Germantown, and Boyds. It rises south of Damascus and flows southward about to Little Seneca Lake, a reservoir created by construction of a dam on the...

. It was built to provide an emergency water supply for the metropolitan Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 area, and it also provides a recreational amenity for the public. The lake is located in Black Hill Regional Park. Fishing and boating facilities are available at the park.
The lake was completed in 1984 and the water supply dam is operated by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission

Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission provides safe drinking water and wastewater treatment for Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland. It was established on May 1, 1918. It is the eighth largest water and wastewater utility in the United States. The WSSC serves about 1.8 million...

 (WSSC). WSSC shares the drinking water resource with two adjacent public water suppliers, the Washington Aqueduct

Washington Aqueduct

The Washington Aqueduct is an aqueduct that provides the public water supply system serving Washington, D.C., and parts of its suburbs. One of the first major aqueduct projects in the United States, the Aqueduct was commissioned by Congress in 1852, and construction began in 1853 under the...

 and the Fairfax County Water Authority

Fairfax County Water Authority

Fairfax County Water Authority is the main water company in the Northern Virginia region of the United States, and one of the three major water providers in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area...

.

The surface area of the lake is 505 acres (2.04 km²). The average depth is 24.7 feet (7.5 m) with a maximum depth of 68 feet (21 m). The capacity of the lake is 4.5 billion gallons (17 million m³). The lake is stocked for recreational fishing. Fish species found 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...

, tiger muskie, channel catfish

Channel catfish

Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States they are the most fished catfish species with approximately 8...

, sunfish

Sunfish

-Saltwater fishes:*Molidae, family of Ocean Sunfishes*Opah, family Lampridae; two species-Freshwater fishes:* Pygmy sunfish, six members of the genus Elassoma* Centrarchidae, a perciform family of about 27 species...

, 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...

.

External links

• "The Little Seneca Creek Watershed." - Water quality information from MCDEP
• Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission