It started with a power plant. In 1968, Virginia Electric and Power Company — known as VEPCO, now Dominion Energy — began purchasing roughly 18,000 acres of farmland across Louisa, Spotsylvania, and Orange counties. The goal was to build the North Anna Nuclear Power Station and create a reservoir to cool its reactors. The land had been used for generations: family farms, timberlands, and some of the earliest gold mining in Virginia. By 1972, that land had been cleared and a 90-foot earthen dam was nearing completion on the North Anna River near Bumpass.
Nature moved faster than the engineers expected. VEPCO projected the lake would take three years to fill. Hurricane Agnes had other plans. When the storm swept through Central Virginia in June 1972, it dropped roughly 12 inches of rain across the watershed — and Lake Anna filled in about 18 months instead of three years. The first lakeside communities started appearing almost immediately.
The nuclear plant came online in stages. The first reactor went into commercial operation in June 1978, the second in December 1980. Together, they generate about 17% of Virginia’s electricity. The warm water discharged through the cooling process gave the lake its defining characteristic — the temperature split between the public and private sides that still shapes how people choose property today.
From utility to community.
What started as an industrial water source has become one of Virginia’s most beloved recreational lakes — roughly 17 miles long, 200 miles of shoreline, over 120 communities, and a State Park that opened in 1983. The lake’s licenses were renewed through 2058 and 2060, meaning Lake Anna has a long future ahead of it.
People Also Ask
Is Lake Anna safe given the nuclear plant?
The water used in cooling never passes through the reactors themselves — it functions like a radiator, not a cooling rod. State and federal agencies regularly monitor water quality. The warm water you swim in on the private side carries no additional radioactivity.
When did people start building homes on Lake Anna?
The first communities began appearing around 1972–1973, as the lake was filling. There are now over 120 distinct communities surrounding the shoreline.
Will Lake Anna always exist? What's the future of the plant?
Dominion’s operating licenses for both North Anna reactors were renewed in 2024, extending operation to 2058 and 2060 respectively. The lake is effectively guaranteed to remain intact for the foreseeable future.
Lake Anna's story is still being written
And the best chapters start with the right lot