Bosque Reservoir

In the late 1970s, Waco leaders grew concerned about the reliability of their water supply, given population increases and periodic droughts. As a result, in the 1980s, the Brazos River Authority and local sponsors began engineering and planning studies for a dam on the North Bosque. However, faced with rising costs for the proposed Bosque Reservoir, skepticism from the Texas Water Commission, and pressures to share water with nearby communities, the Bosque water rights application and related dam were scrapped in 1995. Attention turned to raising the pool in Lake Waco. In 1998, Waco’s City Council approved a 7-foot rise in the Lake’s level and the Corps of Engineers began impoundment on the enlarged Lake Waco in 2003.