O.H. Ivie Reservoir

The O. H. Ivie Reservoir, once called Stacy Reservoir, is impounded by the S. W. Freese Dam at the Concho-Coleman county line. It is located in Concho, Coleman, and Runnels counties. In 1938 the United States Army Corps of Engineers expressed a desire for a reservoir site near the confluence of the Concho and Colorado rivers. An agreement was finally reached in 1985, when the Texas Water Commission granted permission to impound 554,000 acre-feet of water on the Colorado River at Stacy, sixteen miles below the confluence. The project was delayed by negotiations to preserve the endangered Concho water snakes, and to relocate several local family cemeteries. The reservoir was to be named for the Stacy settlement, but it was later decided instead to honor the water district's general manager, O. H. Ivie, and to name the dam for Simon W. Freese, a Fort Worth engineer whose firm had worked on major reservoir projects since 1949. The lake waters are used for domestic and municipal water supply for a number of West Texas cities and towns. The conservation surface area of the lake is 20,000 surface acres. The reservoir and its two-mile rolled earthfill dam, constructed by Brown and Root USA, were dedicated in 1990 and are owned and operated by the Colorado River Municipal Water District. The lake drains an area of 3,300 square miles and has a pool elevation of 1,551 feet. The reservoir is surrounded by a recreation area.