Burnsville Lake is both a recreational and flood control 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...

 on Little Kanawha River

Little Kanawha River

The Little Kanawha River is a tributary of the Ohio River, 169 mi long, in western West Virginia in the United States. Via the Ohio, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 2,320 mi² on the unglaciated portion of the Allegheny Plateau...

 located southeast of Burnsville

Burnsville, West Virginia

Burnsville is a town in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States, at the confluence of the Little Kanawha River and Saltlick Creek. The population was 481 at the 2000 census...

 in Braxton County, West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

. Burnsville Lake was authorized by the U.S. Congress in the Flood Control Act of 1938.

Construction of the Burnsville Lake project was begun in the summer of 1972 and the dam was completed in September 1976. The lake project controls the runoff from a drainage area of 165 square miles (427 km²). The dam is a rock-fill embankment dam

Embankment dam

An embankment dam is a massive artificial water barrier. It is typically created by the emplacement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil, sand, clay and/or rock. It has a semi-permanent waterproof natural covering for its surface, and a dense, waterproof...

 rising 84.5 feet (25.8 m) above the streambed. Top elevation is 839 feet (255.7 m) above sea level, and the crest length is 1400 feet (426.7 m). A gated spillway is located in the left abutment. The outlet works

Outlet works

A set of outlet works is a device used to release and regulate water flow from a dam. Such devices usually consist of one or more pipes or tunnels through the embankment of the dam, directing water usually under high pressure to the river downstream...

are located in the spillway section. The minimum pool is maintained at elevation 776 feet (236.5 m) with a surface area of 550 acres (223 ha). The summer pool is at elevation 789 feet (240.5 m) and has a surface area of 968 acres (392 ha). The flood control pool is at elevation 825 feet (251.5 m) with a surface area of 1900 acres (769 ha).

Many people in Burnsville and surrounding communities opposed the building of the dam since the back waters would flood areas currently occupied and locations of ancestral homes. Cemeteries had to be moved and residents had to relocate. Once the dam was built, there was no recreation area for local residents instead residents of Burnsville had to travel to Bull Run.