Calaveras Lake Park — Attraction in Floresville

Let's be honest. Calaveras is a San Antonio River fed, man-made, power plant cooling lake for CPS's power plant complex located on the shore. Calaveras also receives SAWS waste water, which has gone through its primary and secondary cleaning stages. (The lake is used as the last stage of the waste water treatment process.) Is the water clean? No. They don't allow swimming or any kind of entry into the water. Why? It depends on who you ask. Texas Park&Wildlife says the water meets their guidelines, and they stock the lake with fish every year for you to catch and consume. The EPA says the lake is one of the top 10 contaminated lakes in the US due to the excess of chromium runoff from the powerplants' land based evaporation ponds. OH, OKAY. Plus, SAWS bans swimming due to the increased chance of a horrible infection due to the partially processed sewage. Yay! Plus, there's the supposed alligator prowling the lake. EXCITING!! Ok, so what does that all mean? Well, it's not a destination for sun bathing and frolicking in the water. It's primarily a boating/ fishing lake. Keep the fish? Well, that's up to you. There are two fish cleaning facilities near the boat ramp, and you can keep your legal bag limit in fish. TP&W stocks the lake yearly with saltwater Red Drum, large mouth bass, and blue catfish. TP&W also says it's safe to consume fish from Calaveras, stating they check for water contaminates regularly. Yeah, but Texas isn't known as the bastion of environmental stewardship, Texas has sued the EPA more than any other state. So, go figure. Regardless, the lake is a great place, South of San Antonio, to go boating and...

We are camping here for one week so we can be close to San Antonio. Arrived yesterday and didn't read the reviews before arrival. Everyone is complaining about the garbage here and they are right. It took us an hour to just clean up garbage on our site alone, and that is after park staff came and changed the garbage bag at the site. You name it, cigarette butts, beer cans, beer tabs, all kinds of plastic, broken glass. It is disgusting. My husband went for a walk along the shore and garbage was unbelievable. There are enough garbage cans for people to use them, but obviously they refuse to. It doesn't appear as though park staff bother cleaning up either. The cement pad at our site has recent oil spillage from the previous visitors, and park staff did not clean that up either. We mentioned to have it taken care of, and by day 2 that has not happened yet. The power plant is directly across from the campground, and it is not a pretty sight. It also makes a constant rumbling as though it is a train moving on the tracks. Every 20 minutes it makes a louder noise. Despite all the negatives, the bird sightings are impressive. Osprey, herons, ducks, and all kinds of small birds. I guess they are used to the surroundings and have to live with what people do to their environment. It breaks my heart. CPS Energy who owns this lake and the surrounding area should do better. We are disappointed and of course can not move to another place because once these folks have your money there is a no refund policy. So we will be living in the ghetto for a week. If the garbage alone was cleaned up this park would get a 4-5 star because it is not a bad location. Apparently the fishing...

I've had good experiences there. The park staff is very friendly and helpful. The cost for day entry up yearly passes is reasonable. Sadly, there is garbage left by people even though there are well maintained trash cans everywhere. For the most part, the people that frequent the lake are friendly, helpful and care about the wildlife. I helped one fisherman rescue a turtle that had swallowed a hook and could not open its mouth. The "operation" of removing the hook was successful without any tears at all and the turtle was released back to the lake and swam away!! For anyone in a small watercraft, the lake gets choppy quick. One minute it's calm and then the next minute there a baby white caps! Unless you have a small motor to help, paddling in place takes on a whole new meaning out there. There's lots of places to camp, hike, set up for BBQ's and R.V's as well as day fishing. Overall, it's a nice place, nice people and...