Lake Whatcom
Lake Whatcom is a natural, deep water lake between Mount Baker and Bellingham, Washington. Lake Whatcom is sole drinking water source for more than 90,000 people. A proposed reconvenance of land would transfer state lands to Whatcom County.
Between Mount Baker and Washington Coast
Natural, deep-water Lake Whatcom near Bellingham, Washington, is the sole source of drinking water for more than 90,000 people. The lake's watershed covers some 56 square miles. Half of the watershed is privately owned and the other half is made up of public lands managed by DNR for various trusts, with a focus on logging in the watershed to generate revenue.
Roughly half of the DNR-managed land around Lake Whatcom was granted at statehood to support schools, while the other half belongs to the county. These were private lands which the county claimed after tax defaults early last century. State law allows counties to transfer (or "reconvey") such land away from the DNR providing the counties have a recreation plan for the lands.
Fortunately, there's good news. A proposed new Lake Whatcom forest preserve park, once approved, will protect fragile soils from logging and associated road building, protecting drinking water, keeping neighborhoods safe from landslides, and providing low-impact trails.
See a bird's eye view of the proposed land exchange.
Clean water
The soils of the Lake Whatcom watershed are largely unconsolidated and unstable. Logging operations channel sediment pollution into the lake and have caused landslides onto communities and the into the water. That sediment contains phosphorous, which fosters algae growth and greatly degrades water quality.
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Marbled murrelets are known to frequent
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As the number of people living here grows, so does the need to protect clean water in Lake Whatcom, an important drinking water source. While stormwater runoff from residential development is the biggest threat, runoff and landslides from logging and associated roads is a real threat, especially on steep slopes.
A history of protection
Part private land, part state-managed land, Lake Whatcom has several communities built right down to the lake shore; boats and engines are allowed on the lake waters, and logging promoted on the state lands.
In 2000, Conservation Northwest and others persuaded the Legislature to unanimously pass the Lake Whatcom bill requiring DNR to develop a landscape plan to protect water and local neighborhoods. In 2004, DNR adopted a Lake Whatcom Landscape Management Plan, developed in consultation with a local advisory committee. The landscape plan is in effect. It rests on a strong legal foundation and is rooted in community support, regulating logging on DNR land here to a higher standard than anywhere else in the state.
But DNR will still be logging substantial areas, including clear-cuts of up to 100 acres, within the Lake Whatcom watershed by constructing dozens of miles of new road, in some cases across steep, unstable slopes. Reconveyence will prevent this by consolidating (through intertrust land swap) county land onto the steepest slopes of Lookout and Stewart Mountains, and placing them into forest preserve.
