Friant Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the upper San Joaquin River in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Fresno County, California near the town of Friant. The dam, completed in 1942, forms Millerton Lake and was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns and operates the dam. The lake and dam are about 15 miles (24 km) north of downtown Fresno. The lake storage capacity is 520,500 acre·ft (642,000 dam³) for irrigation of the San Joaquin Valley, which is distributed by the Madera- and Friant-Kern-Canals. Its secondary uses include flood control and recreation. Upstream from the dam is the Big Creek hydroelectric system.