The current Sugar Hollow Dam was built in 1947 to supply water for the community. The low head dam visible at the toe of the spillway was built in 1920 to primarily supply water to Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the City of Charlottesville. It is connected to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir via a 13-mile pipeline. Water spilling over the dam flows into the Moormans River which is a tributary to the South Fork Rivanna River. These three interconnected reservoirs act as one system to adequately provide the drinking water for our urban area now and in the future. The Sugar Hollow reservoir is the highest elevation of the RWSA’s three dams used for our urban water supply, and, as such, has been used to help fill the others. In 1995, a record setting flood occurred. In 1998, the dam was upgraded for dam safety. Subsequently, the Sugar Hollow dam rehabilitation project won the National Dam Rehabilitation of the Year project in 2000 from the American Society of Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO).
