Willard Bay is a man-made freshwater reservoir within the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah, created as part of the Weber Basin Project to store surplus water from the Ogden and Weber rivers for farmland. Congress approved the project in 1949 under U.S. Senator Arthur Vivian Watkins, and a 36-foot-high earth-filled dike enclosing 26.4 square miles was completed in 1964 as the Arthur V. Watkins Dam. After salt water was drained and replaced with Weber River water, the reservoir also became a major recreation area. Today it supports boating, fishing, camping, and winter wildlife habitat, including nesting eagles.