History
In 1949, U.S. Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, a Republican from Utah who served from 1946 to 1959, passed through Congress the Weber Basin Project. This project called for the creation of a reservoir to store surplus water from the Ogden and Weber rivers that could later be accessed for use on farmland.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation designed and constructed a 36-foot (11 m)-high earth-filled dike to create the 26.4-square-mile (68 km2) enclosure. The dike, which impounds 215,200 acre-feet of water, was completed in 1964 by the W.W. Clyde Company, and was named the Arthur V. Watkins Dam. The resulting reservoir was then drained of salt water and refilled with fresh, directly from the Weber River. The bay was named after the nearby town of Willard.
A bill in Congress, H.R. 839 and S. 512, The Arthur V. Watkins Dam Enlargement Act, was introduced in the 2007 session to authorize a feasibility study to enlarge the dam. While the bill passed the House of Representatives, it was suspended in the Senate and never became law.
Read more about this topic: Willard Bay
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