Lake services and information

• Swimming beach water quality and temperature
  Find out about bacteria pollution levels and health risks at swimming beaches on lake Sammamish, Lake Washington, Pine Lake, Fivemile Lake, and Lake Wilderness.
• Small lakes recreation guide
  Your one-stop resource for information that will help you enjoy and use dozens of beautiful small lakes in King County.
• Swimming beaches Frequently Asked Questions
• Boating regulations fact sheet - King County
  Learn about speed limits, personal floatation devices, operation of personal watercraft, motorized boat bans and other restrictions on specific King County Lakes.
• King County Code Section 12.44* [Acrobat file]
• Boating regulations - Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Chapter 79A.60*

Lake water quality:

• Major lakes monitoring information
  Introduction: What and Why We Monitor These pages provide water quality sample data, offer characterization data such as size, depth, volume, flushing rate, tributary inflow and other information and describe historical water quality issues affecting major King County lakes.
• Graphs and data for major lakes:
• Graphs and data for small lakes
• Environmental indicators for freshwater environment
  Learn about the condition of King County’s lakes, key factors influencing their condition, King County actions, and how you can help.
• Sediment quality evaluation in Lake Sammamish, Lake Union, and Lake Washington
  Report of chemical and biological substances, their distribution and toxicity, and benthic communities at various sample sites.
• Streams monitoring
  Keeping watch for pollution in streams draining to Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish and the Green/Duwamish River.

Lake maps:

• Hydrography - interactive map
  Note: this link will open a new browser window
  Zoom in to view and query GIS datasets including lakes and streams in King County, drainage areas, King County wetlands inventory, National wetlands inventory, and display aerial photos and USGS topographic map images.
• King County lakes map
  This color map includes cities as of December, 1999; lakes, lake names in western King County, rivers, and streams. File format is Adobe Acrobat version 3. File size is 734 Kb and will take approximately 4 minutes to download on a 28.8 Kb/s modem.

Lake resources, guides and references:

Learn about King County's program to protect shorelines, promote public access, and establish priorities for shoreline uses for the county's large lakes, rivers and Puget Sound.

• Learn about lakes
• Lakes fact sheets
• Lakes glossary
• Introduction to lakes - Each has a life of its own
• Lake Shorelines, Life on the Edge Video Series
  Watch a video that describes lakes in King County and how residents value them, with ideas that shoreline landowners may like to apply to help preserve the quality of lakes and lake ecosystems.
• Toxic algae in Lake Sammamish
• Leeches!
  During summer months, some King County lakes host leeches! Read the leech page to learn about the value of leeches, their life cycle, and feeding and reproduction.
• Shoreline Master Program
• Critical Areas Ordinance fact sheet: Aquatic Areas (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Lakes history

• History of King County's regional wastewater treatment utility
  Read how our region worked to keep our lakes and Puget Sound clean and healthy, including the early days of sewage treatment and disposal in King County, the birth of Metro and development of regional facilities to process the waste produced by our metropolitan area.
• The birth of Metro
• Lake Washington story
  A discussion about the value of Lake Washington, its past pollution problems and subsequent efforts to clean up the lake.
• Lake Sammamish story
  An overview of Lake Sammamish and its value to people and wildlife, the lake's past pollution problems and subsequent efforts to keep the lake clean.

Be a lake volunteer - how you can help:

• Environmental laboratory
  Collects samples from lakes, rivers and marine waters, biosolids application sites, industries and wastewater treatment plants, and analyzes samples in one of several labs including trace metals, organics, conventionals, microbiology and aquatic toxicology labs.
• Aquatic plants
  Find out how to identify plants in your lake including noxious aquatic weeds, and learn how to help manage aquatic plants.
• Volunteer event calendar
  Join us in stenciling stormdrains, restoring fish and wildlife habitat, and other lake related activities.