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Questions and Answers about Protecting Lake Whatcom Resevoir

Mission Statement

The health of Lake Whatcom will always be vitally important to our community and the forces impacting its health will always be complex. Unless someone is willing to tear down every house in the watershed and prohibit cars around it, we are going to have to continue to look for ways to mitigate the damage and pollution that comes from development and human activity.

A recent sampling of the lake by Western Washington University's Robin Mathews, who has studied the lake's health for more than 16 years and undoubtedly knows more about it than just about any other scientist, found that the lake is suffering from low oxygen. That's risky because when oxygen in the lake is low, contamination like mercury and phosphorus in the sediments can become more available in the water. The city says there is no doubt that the drinking water source for more than 85,000 people is still safe. However, whenever water quality in the lake declines, it is a reminder that this issue needs constant supervision.

The city has enacted a land-clearing ordinance in the Silver Beach neighborhood and placed limits on impervious surfaces (the footprint of homes and driveways) and the county is working on its own plans to deal with those same issues. The problem, though, is that this work seems to come in fits and spurts rather than a constant flow of progress toward helping the lake.

The health of the lake needs to be always at the top of the priority list, particularly when there are problems we already know about and know how to ease.

For example, pollution from the Tweed Twenty neighborhood runs downhill and right into the lake. Studies have shown that the Park Place Drain, a storm water detention pond, is not working as it should be to filter runoff. Storm water systems cannot fully stop pollution damage, but they can help. Yet, there has been no move to put in a more effective system.

Critics of the county's proposed new system for evaluating risk from land-clearing rather than banning it outright during the rainy season say that erosion-prevention methods often don't work because they sometimes aren't used even when required and are often improperly installed. That shows a need to improve monitoring and require action against those who don't follow rules.

There is no one reason to explain the oxygen change. Drought and the city voluntarily drawing less water through the pipes that divert water from the middle fork of the Nooksack River into the lake could be a factor. With less water coming into the lake, more algae may be forming and using up more oxygen. Pollution is likely a factor as well. It flows into the lake from homes, roads, logging, businesses and the tributaries that are also impacted by those things.

The water in the lake serves primarily the citizens of Bellingham and the city of Bellingham is responsible for water quality and treatment. The most polluted portion of the lake is the basin near the Silver Beach neighborhood, which is in the city limits and has the most dense population around the lake.

The majority of the land, however, is under county jurisdiction. Just as the city and county need to keep a constant eye on the health of the lake, they need to be continually moving toward ways to mitigate factors that harm its health.

email: info@pflw.org
phone: 360-676-1254

© 2002 People for Lake Whatcom
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