Shasta Lake

Shasta Lake, also popularly known as Lake Shasta, is a reservoir in Shasta County, California, United States. It began to store water in 1944 due to the impounding of the Sacramento River by Shasta Dam, the ninth tallest dam in the United States.Shasta Lake is a key facility of the Central Valley Project and provides flood control for the Sacramento Valley downstream of the dam. Water outflow generates power through the Shasta Powerplant and is subsequently used for irrigation and municipal purposes.The reservoir lies within the Whiskeytown–Shasta–Trinity National Recreation Area, operated by the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has developed a safe eating advisory for fish caught in the lake based on levels of mercury or PCBs found in local species.