Texoma is a federal shoreline and a faintly salty lake. Both facts change what gets built here — and the permit comes before the design, not after it.
The Corps of Engineers owns the ground your dock would stand on. A permit is the only way onto it.
Lake Texoma lies on the Red River at and below its confluence with the Washita, behind Denison Dam. Construction began in 1939, impoundment followed in 1943–44, and the project came into service in 1944. It spans Grayson and Cooke counties in Texas and Bryan, Marshall, Johnston and Love counties in Oklahoma — and the federal government owns the shoreline around essentially all of it.
That reshapes what a Texoma "waterfront" lot actually is. The lot normally stops well short of the water. The strip between your property line and the lake is government land, and a dock or boathouse reaching across it exists under a revocable permit rather than as an improvement to real estate you own.
Private docks, boathouses and vegetation modification are authorized through a Shoreline Use Permit, applied for on SWT Form 1133 and filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District — Lake Texoma Project Office, 351 Corps Rd., Denison, TX 75020, (903) 465-4990. The submittal is specific: two sets of structural plans on 8.5 x 11 paper, proof of legal access to the site, a detailed site map showing the proposed location, and notarized copies of boat registrations.
Recent history matters here too. The Corps imposed a moratorium on new shoreline use permits in March 2020 while it rewrote the Shoreline Management Plan. The 2021 plan was finalized and applications reopened on 1 May 2021, with new private floating facilities taken first come, first served.
The decisive detail is allocation. Permits are issued only where the Shoreline Management Plan classifies that reach for limited development, and neighbouring properties can fall on opposite sides of that line. Confirming the classification for your specific frontage is the first phone call, before a drawing exists. What the current plan allows for private bulkheads and retaining walls on Corps ground is a question for the project office as well — it does not follow from what is ordinary on a privately owned Texas lake, and Shoretech will not assume an answer on your behalf.
Nearly every reservoir in this service area is fresh water. Texoma is not. As much as 3,450 tons of salt a day enters the lake from natural Red River salt deposits, which makes saltwater corrosion a live material question hundreds of miles from the coast.
Brackish water changes the calculus on fasteners, coatings, galvanizing and the choice between steel, composite and treated timber. A specification that lasts thirty years on a freshwater East Texas lake is not automatically the right specification here.
Top of conservation pool is 617.0 ft msl, varied seasonally between 615.0 and 619.0, with the bottom of conservation pool at 590.0. The flood control pool runs to 645 ft, and the lake has topped the 640 ft spillway five times — 1957, 1990, 2007 and twice in 2015, on 24 May and 18 June. TPWD reports 5 to 8 feet of normal annual fluctuation, but a flood year puts water many feet above normal for weeks.
Rocky bluffs and boulder shoreline in places, sandy flats in others, submerged stump beds and roughly 50 miles of standing timber, and about 9 miles of existing riprap. Red River sediment leaves the upper arms softer and siltier. What the pile hits depends entirely on which cove you are in.
This is a big, wind-exposed reservoir reaching about 100 feet deep. Structures on exposed points and open shoreline are engineered for wave action and wind load that a sheltered creek arm never sees.
Roughly 54 Corps-managed parks ring Texoma, alongside a dense band of private marinas on both the Texas and Oklahoma shores.
Texoma reaches about 100 feet deep. Published size figures genuinely disagree by source, and we would rather say so than quietly pick one: the Corps of Engineers cites roughly 89,000 surface acres and 580 miles of shoreline at conservation pool, Texas Parks & Wildlife publishes 74,686 acres, and the Texas Almanac gives 75,686 acres and 1,250 shoreline miles.
Every item below is designed to the permit that governs your frontage, and to brackish water.
Permitted covered structures built to the Corps submittal — structural plans, site map and access documentation prepared as part of the job, not handed to you as homework.
Fixed and floating docks sized for a pool that moves between 615 and 619 in an ordinary year and far higher in a wet one.
Bank protection and retaining wall work, designed to whatever the Shoreline Management Plan permits on your reach — a question Dave settles in writing first.
Slip and access dredging where silt from the Red River arms has filled in usable depth, with material pumped for reuse rather than trucked away.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District, through the Lake Texoma Project Office at 351 Corps Rd., Denison, TX 75020, (903) 465-4990. Private docks, boathouses and vegetation modification are authorized by a Shoreline Use Permit applied for on SWT Form 1133. The submittal calls for two sets of structural plans on 8.5 x 11 paper, proof of legal access to the site, a detailed site map showing the proposed location, and notarized copies of boat registrations.
Because permits are issued only where the Shoreline Management Plan classifies that stretch of shoreline for limited development, and the classification follows the plan's allocation map rather than property lines. Two adjoining lots can genuinely fall on opposite sides of that line. Confirm the allocation for your own frontage with the project office before a design is drawn or a bid is priced.
Yes. Texoma is naturally brackish. As much as 3,450 tons of salt a day enters the lake from natural Red River salt deposits, which makes saltwater corrosion of steel a real design factor on a lake hundreds of miles from the coast. Fastener metallurgy, coatings, galvanizing and the choice between steel, composite and treated timber all get decided differently here than on a freshwater reservoir.
Yes. Shoretech is based in Trinity, Texas, and Dave travels as far as a project warrants across Texas and western Louisiana. Call 936-662-5100 to talk through your frontage, the shoreline allocation that applies to it, and what the Corps will consider.
Tell Dave where your lot sits, how far it stops short of the water, and what you want to be able to do at the lake. The shoreline classification comes first — the design follows from it.