Mountain Creek 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 8 miles (13 km) southwest of downtown

Downtown Dallas

Downtown Dallas is the Central Business District in Dallas, Texas USA, located in the geographic center of the city. The area termed "Downtown" has traditionally been defined as bounded by the downtown freeway loop: bounded on the east by I-345 Downtown Dallas is the Central Business District...

 Dallas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, 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...

 (USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

) in the Mountain Creek area of the city. It is located south of SH 180

Texas State Highway 180

State Highway 180, or SH 180, is a highway that runs through Tarrant County and Dallas County in Texas between Interstate 35W in Fort Worth, running east to Interstate 35E in Dallas.-Route description:...

, west of Spur 408, north of I-20, and east of FM 1382. The defunct Naval Air Station Dallas (Hensley Field) is located on the northwestern shore of the lake. Mountain Creek Lake Park is on the lake's southeastern and southwestern edges.

There is currently a ban on eating any fish out of this lake due to high contamination levels of PCB's. This is due to the use of airplane fuels and other toxic chemicals throughout the history of Hensley Field.

History

Construction on Mountain Creek Dam began in 1929 and the dam was complete in early 1937. The reservoir was designed as a cooling reservoir for a Dallas Power and Light Company electric power plant.

The original permit for the lake suggested a capacity of 40000 acre.ft, but the capacity in 1992 was only 22840 acre.ft due to heavy siltation

Siltation

Siltation is the pollution of water by fine particulate terrestrial clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments, and to the increased accumulation of fine sediments on bottoms where they are undesirable...

.