Another largely unknown oddity on El Paso’s Westside is the Portland Cement Reservoir.  Its a small man made lake that sits between Paisano and I-10.  To get to it you need to exit from Paisano onto Race Track Drive and head towards the Buena Vista Grocery.  You then turn right on Torres Street and drive past a red, 3 story brick building. The road is dirt from there and you are looking for a turn that will take you up hill next to a mobile home that sits on the top.  If you pass a cement plant you have gone to far:

Not to far off the beaten path

It’s easy enough to get to, the first hill between the mobile home and the cement plant was kind of steep but not impassable.  Once up top you pass a large water tower and it should be a little ways off to the left.

Come on in, the water's fine!

I’m guessing Cemex or Jobe uses this for their quarry operations, as there was some sort of pump and line going into the lake.   Schools of mosquito fish were in the water so it must not be to bad.  There was a large presence of algae in the water but it didn’t have any funny or moldy smells. There’s a good chance of seeing a bob cat or even a mountain lion given the presence of birds in the trees and several large jack rabbits that I spooked off.

Over the dam and through the rocks...

Across the dam there was an area that may have been a boat launch at one time.

Boat launch?

From the boat launch area a road continues on the right around the lake. I drove off to the left and found the worlds most desolate ball park:

Batter up!

There wasn’t much more to see so I headed back to the office.  The full Flickr set can be viewed here.