Lake Anna

How Lake Anna Came to Exist

Lake Anna was not created for recreation. In 1968, Virginia Electric and Power Company — now Dominion Energy — purchased roughly 18,000 acres of farmland across Louisa, Spotsylvania, and Orange counties along the North Anna and Pamunkey rivers. The purpose was singular: to create a freshwater cooling reservoir for the nuclear power plant it planned to build on the site. The dam gates closed on the North Anna River in January 1972, and the lake was projected to take three years to fill. It took eighteen months. Hurricane Agnes stalled over central Virginia in June 1972 and essentially filled the lake by itself. Full pool — 250 feet above mean sea level — was reached in December 1972.

North Anna Power Station's first reactor went into commercial operation in June 1978. The second followed in December 1980. Together the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors generate approximately 1.89 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power roughly 475,000 homes — representing about 15% of Virginia's total electricity and more than 43% of its carbon-free generation. The NRC renewed operating licenses for both units in 2024: Unit 1 is now licensed through 2058, Unit 2 through 2060. Dominion is also evaluating a Small Modular Reactor co-located at the North Anna site, with a possible operational date in the early-to-mid 2030s.

The lake and the plant are inseparable. Dominion owns not just the dam and the nuclear facility but the lake itself and most of the shoreline surrounding it. When you buy waterfront property at Lake Anna, you are buying a lot that abuts Dominion's reservoir — and that ownership structure shapes everything from dock permits to the water you're swimming in.

The Public Side and the Private Side: The Most Critical Distinction

Lake Anna has two distinct water bodies that share a name but function as entirely separate lakes for practical purposes. The public side — also called the cold side or the main lake — is the larger portion, covering approximately 9,600 acres of the lake's 13,000 total acres. This is the side where all public marinas operate, where Lake Anna State Park sits, where all public boat ramps are located, and where the vast majority of residential and recreational activity takes place.

The private side — called the warm side or the Waste Heat Treatment Facility (WHTF) — covers approximately 3,400 acres in the southern portion of the lake adjacent to the power plant. After lake water cools the plant's steam condensers (a process where the water never contacts nuclear fuel), it is discharged into the WHTF through a series of dikes and cooling channels before returning to the main lake. The discharge runs roughly 14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the intake water, making the private side noticeably warmer year-round — a characteristic that produces exceptional winter fishing and extends the swimming season by several weeks compared to the cold side.

Three earthen dikes physically separate the two sides. There is no boat passage between them at any point. A boat launched from the private side cannot reach the public side by water, and vice versa. If you own property on the private side and want to access the full main lake — the sandbar, the upper arms, the Lake Anna State Park beach, the marinas — you must load your boat on a trailer, drive to a public ramp, and launch from there. This is not a seasonal restriction or an unusual condition. It is the permanent, physical geography of the lake. A buyer purchasing on the private side should understand clearly that they are buying access to 3,400 acres of warm, private water, and giving up on-water access to the other 9,600 acres unless they make a land-side trip to a public launch.

The private side has no public marinas, no public boat ramps, and no commercial water access of any kind. It is accessible only to Dominion property owners and Dominion employees. The warm water and the privacy are the two genuine advantages of private-side ownership. For buyers who fish — particularly in winter, when bass and stripers concentrate in the warm discharge zone near Dike III — the private side's year-round warmth is a real advantage. For buyers who want to boat freely across the full lake, attend the sandbar, reach the state park by water, or launch from any public ramp, the public side is the correct choice.

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