 However, structurally the dam was likely doomed from the start, as it was constructed on the spot where the Balcones Fault passes under the river.Silt had filled nearly half the lake by February 1900, and the dam's design failed to accommodate the force that could be created by a large volume of water.However, the flow of the Colorado proved to be far more variable than the project's promoters had claimed, and the dam was never able to produce the kind of steady power needed to drive a bank of mills.