![]() “There is a connection between what’s happening upstream in the watershed to what’s happening downstream in the lake,” Rostorfer said. While the city is busy tackling pollution sources that are directly discharging into the city’s lakes, the state’s Department of Ecology will be looking for pollution sources upstream, in the 67-square-mile Lacamas Creek watershed.ĭevan Rostorfer, a water quality specialist with Ecology, said it is important for people to understand that Lacamas Lake’s water quality issues may be connected to pollution sources as far as 18 miles away in Vancouver’s Orchards neighborhood, where the Lacamas Creek watershed begins and throughout the entire watershed. State will address upstream pollution in Lacamas Creek watershed We have a lot of momentum right now … so, hopefully, we’ll get buy-in from the community and get strategies that are forever.” “To do this right, we need to manage the lakes long-term,” Wall said, “and we need to have a full management strategy that the community agrees with and that we stick with. The consultants also will help draft a detailed work plan for Phase 2, which will research pollution discharging into the lakes and come up with short- and long-term goals to help improve the lakes’ water quality. “In the first phase, we’ll talk to stakeholders and the community, and make sure we understand what they’re looking for and what our goals are for the lakes,” Wall said. Ideally, Wall said, city councilors will approve a consultant contract in June, and the 90-day Phase 1 will get started early this summer. “We’ve had three meetings with the Lacamas Creek Watershed Committee and we’re shooting for mid-May … for Council to review the (consultants) and ask questions.” Now, city leaders are poised to select a consultant to help prepare the first phase of the two-part lake management plan. The Council also approved spending up to $300,000 - funded by the city’s stormwater utility fund and, possibly, by state grants - to create lake management plans for Lacamas, Round and Fallen Leaf lakes, establish water quality goals and develop strategies that will improve the lakes’ water quality and, eventually, help prevent toxic algae blooms. 16, 2020, the council voted unanimously to form a Lacamas Creek Watershed Committee to investigate and advise the city on water quality topics related to the Lacamas Creek watershed. “It is critically important, so let’s stay on it and keep it a top priority.” “From what I hear in the community, this is one of the top issues,” Chaney said at the same November 2020 city council meeting. “This is a unique lake and it has unique problems,” Camas City Councilman Steve Hogan said in November 2020 about the 2.4-mile-long Lacamas Lake, which is known as a popular water-recreation spot despite its chronic problems with toxic algae and other pollutants, including phosphorus, nitrogen and ammonia. “When they started seeing caution signs and then, last year, hazard signs, it did draw a lot of attention.”īy the end of 2020, Camas City Council members agreed the lakes’ water-quality issues were a top concern. ![]() “There was a big difference from 2019 to 2020,” Wall said of the toxic algae and the number of warning signs that went up around Camas’ largest lake. “Nearby Round Lake has also seen increases in blooms, though not as severe, and Fallen Leaf Lake had its first reported bloom,” city staff noted in a 2021 report, adding: “There is concern all three lakes will continue to degrade.”Ĭamas Public Works Director Steve Wall said 2020’s “near-continual” algal blooms in Lacamas Lake worried many longtime Camasonians. And by 2020, Lacamas Lake was experiencing what city of Camas staff recently called “near-continual toxic algae blooms” throughout the spring, summer and fall.Īnd the problem isn’t just impacting Lacamas Lake. By 2019, the algae, which can sicken humans and kill pets, came back at least five times. Then, in 2018, the lake - known as “the jewel of Camas” - experienced two toxic algae blooms. The signs used to appear infrequently, maybe once every couple years, warning swimmers, kayakers, boaters and dog walkers of a blue-green hazard floating in Camas’ prized Lacamas Lake.
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