Appalachian History Series
Setting the scene
Where Paint Creek meets the Levisa Fork at Paintsville, a federal reservoir now anchors the landscape and the local economy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers calls it Paintsville Lake, a rock-fill dam with an impervious core that impounds a narrow mountain lake used for flood risk reduction, water supply, low-flow augmentation, fish and wildlife, and recreation. The Corps lists the structure at about 160 feet high and roughly 1,600 feet long, with an uncontrolled broad-crested spillway and a reservoir that stretches about 18 miles at summer pool.
From idea to authorization
Paintsville Lake was one of many Appalachian water projects advanced in the mid twentieth century as Congress tried to blunt chronic flood losses in the Big Sandy basin. The reservoir itself was authorized in the Flood Control Act of 1965, and the Huntington District later recorded that it was placed in operation in September 1983.
Federal law sets out how these reservoirs are operated. The governing regulation on water control management sits in the Code of Federal Regulations and in the Corps’ Engineer Regulation 1110-2-240, both of which describe how district offices develop and update water control plans and manuals for each project.
Building a mountain dam
The dam that closed Paint Creek is a rock-fill structure with an impervious core. Its purpose was never only flood storage. Engineers also designed the project to bolster water supply, support aquatic life by augmenting low flows, and create a recreation pool. The Corps’ current project page summarizes those functions along with physical specs, shoreline length, and the lake’s 709-foot normal summer pool.
Public involvement around land use and recreation has continued into the present day. The Huntington District’s 2023 master plan and the open portal for the Paintsville Lake Regional Master Plan revision document acreage, shoreline resources, and the process for updating how the surrounding federal lands are managed.
“Cracks in a temporary dam” in December 1978
Construction was not without drama. During a week of extreme rainfall in December 1978, U.S. Geological Survey field crews documented widespread Kentucky flooding. One passage in their statewide flood report stands out for Johnson County. Nearly 10,000 residents of Paintsville were evacuated after cracks were detected in a temporary earth dam on Paint Creek upstream of town. People returned when water levels receded. That line from the USGS is the contemporary primary account of what locals still remember as the construction-era scare.
Operations and water data, then and now
Once the project went into operation in 1983, Paintsville Lake became part of the Huntington District’s daily water management network. Today the district publishes live lake elevations and outflows, and it still identifies 709 feet as summer pool for Paintsville. The same dashboard shows how the project is run in real time in coordination with the rest of the basin.
If you want to see how the dam affects the larger river, the long-running USGS gage on the Levisa Fork at Paintsville has daily discharge back to 1915. That record lets historians and hydrologists compare pre-project and post-project flow regimes through floods, droughts, and everything in between.
Pre-impoundment studies help anchor the baseline. A 1955 USGS Water-Supply Paper on the “Paintsville area” documented geology and ground-water conditions well before the dam existed, a useful window into the hydrology that engineers and planners were working with in the two decades that followed.
Recreation, fish and wildlife, and state partnerships
Although the reservoir and dam are federal, the lakeshore experience is shared. Kentucky State Parks operates Paintsville Lake State Park, which frames a swath of the shoreline with campgrounds, ramps, and trails. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources manages the Paintsville Lake Wildlife Management Area around much of the reservoir, and stocks fish in the lake and in Paint Creek below the dam. USACE’s site and KDFWR’s pages outline how those responsibilities are divided.
For day-to-day reference, the National Weather Service’s National Water Prediction Service hosts a gauge page for Paint Creek at Paintsville Lake that lists the normal pool at 709 feet and shows observed stages.
Archaeology before inundation
Like other Appalachian reservoirs, Paintsville Lake was preceded by archaeological surveys. In November 1975, Huntington District archaeologists reported test excavations at the Sparks Stone Mounds site, a pre-impoundment investigation within the project footprint. That report is a primary source for cultural resources affected by the lake’s creation.
Why the project matters
Paintsville Lake changed Johnson County’s relationship with high water, with summer recreation, and with the river beneath it. The 1978 evacuation highlighted the risks of building any major dam in steep country. The 1983 startup marked a shift to a managed system that now has four decades of operational history. Today the project sits at the intersection of flood risk reduction, habitat, and tourism, guided by federal water control regulations and by public master-plan updates that steer how people actually use the lake and its shoreline.
Sources and further reading
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Great Lakes and Ohio River Division, “Paintsville Lake” project page, specs and purposes. USACE Great Lakes Division
USACE Water Data, “Project Information: Paintsville,” including National Inventory of Dams ID KY82202. U.S. Geological Survey
USACE, Huntington District Water Management live data for Paintsville Lake. LRH-WC
USACE, Paintsville Lake Master Plan and Integrated Environmental Assessment materials and 2024 Regional Master Plan portal. Wikimedia Commons+1
USGS, Open-File Report 79-977: The December 1978 Flood in Kentucky, evacuation note for Paintsville. U.S. Geological Survey
USGS Water Data, Levisa Fork at Paintsville, daily discharge since 1915. USGS Water Data
USGS, Water-Supply Paper 1257: Geology and Ground-Water Resources of the Paintsville Area, Kentucky (1955). U.S. Geological Survey
USACE, Johnson County, KY Section 202 Definite Project Report and EA (2020), legislative history noting Flood Control Act of 1965 authorization and September 1983 operational date. Knowledge Core Repository
33 CFR 222.5 and ER 1110-2-240, Water Control Management, federal regulation and Corps policy for water control plans and manuals. eCFR+1
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Paintsville Lake WMA page. fw.ky.gov
Kentucky State Parks, Paintsville Lake State Park page. Kentucky State Parks
USACE Huntington District, Test Excavations at Sparks Stone Mounds (15Jo21), Paintsville Lake Project (Nov. 1975). Academia
NOAA National Water Prediction Service, “Paint Creek at Paintsville Lake” gauge, normal pool and observed stages. National Water Prediction Service