Fannin County, Texas -- Archer Western, the construction manager of the project, was kind enough to provide some facts about the new North Texas Municipal Lake project. There are currently 40 pieces of construction equipment on site between two contractors, Hammett Excavation and Phillips & Jordan. There will be approximately 50 more pieces of heavy equipment arriving in the near future. While work at the site has been going on for about a month, contractors will start working on the site of the dam in earnest this coming week. That work will be done by Phillips & Jordan. Hammett is working on the road and clearing the area trees.

There will be roughly 300 workers on site. Right now work is being conducted from sun up to sundown. In the future, 24-hour workdays may be necessary, depending on the progress made this first summer. The amount of rain that falls during the first two years of work will be critical to the construction timeline.

The dam for the 16,000-acre lake will be completely earthen, but the intake and service spillway structure will be cement. There will be soil cement on the face of the dam. The anticipated depth of water at the dam will approach 90 feet, with the dam being 700-feet wide toe-to-toe and 90-feet tall.

By comparison, Lake Bonham covers 1,020 acres and  is 30-feet deep.

Bois d'Arc Creek flows past the site where the dam will be.

Clearing and burning began a month ago.

Scrapers

This view is to the northwest, near where the dam will be constructed.

The balloons in the distance mark the waterline.

photos by Jarrett Tucker and Allen Rich