Epoxy

Lake Norman

Mooresville, North Carolina, USA

Also known as Mooresville, Cornelius, Charlotte

Lake Norman runs three power stations. It spins turbines at Cowans Ford, cools a coal plant, and cools two nuclear reactors.

Duke Power dammed the Catawba at Cowans Ford between 1959 and 1963 and made the largest body of fresh water in the state, about 32,500 acres with 520 miles of shoreline.

The hydro station at the dam runs four turbines and about 350 megawatts, mostly as peaking power on hot afternoons and cold mornings. Marshall Steam Station takes lake water to condense its steam. McGuire Nuclear Station, which came online in 1981 and 1984, does the same for two reactors.

All of that sits under a lake with a state park, eight public boat ramps, and houses along most of the rest of it. Locals call it the inland sea.

Details

Feature: Lake
Build: Epoxy
Material: Solid Maple
Colour: Caribbean Blue
Size: 10-1/2" x 16"
Completed: March 2025

Shop this Style $350.00 CAD

How this one was made

Not wall to wall, so the dam follows the waterline about half an inch out and the flood runs along the shore. Norman is nothing but arms: hundreds of creek fingers coming off a long main body, most of them thinning to a point, and the offset dam has to run out and back along every one. The compass is poured in the same blue as the water but sits well away from it, so it takes a section of its own. The star is a third color with its own dam again, and maple has the least sanding margin of anything we use.