Lake Chaffee is 856 feet above sea level, -- about 800 feet higher than Hartford. As a result, our average temperature is about 4 degrees cooler than towns in the Connecticut River Valley like Hartford
Lake Chaffee's surface area is about 54 acres.
The mean depth of Lake Chaffee is 6'.
The watershed feeding Lake Chaffee is 284 acres.
It takes nearly 6 months for our lake water to be exchanged.
The deepest point in Lake Chaffee is about 11'.
We have approximately 8,400 feet of shoreline excluding our islands.
Use of gasoline-powered engines is not permitted on, over, or above Lake Chaffee [i.e. gasoline-powered boats, snowmobiles, snowblowers, augers, etc.]
The Community
The Lake Chaffee community is comprised of about 700 lots surrounding Lake Chaffee. See the plot plan for Lake Chaffee
There are presently fewer than 260 Lake Chaffee property owners.
Lake Chaffee Improvement Association, Inc. (LCIA) is a special taxing district created by the Connecticut State Legislature in 1957. See a copy of the original Special Act creating LCIA
LCIA owns the lake bottom, the islands, two beaches, the boat launch area, and two lake-access corridors. See the annotated Lake Chaffee plot plan
The Dam
The lake was formed from a small pond and surrounding swamp when an earthen dam/levee was installed sometime prior to 1934.
Lake Chaffee is maintained by a 300' long earthen dam/levee which abuts the properties of multiple dwellings.
The excess water passes over a 10' wide concrete spillway into Chaffee Brook and thence to the Mt. Hope River.
A twelve inch pipe passes beneath the dam from the lake to the brook, put there permit lake level to be lowered. An underwater valve controls flow of water through this pipe. The underwater valve permitting temporary lowering of the water level is inoperable.