Palmer Lake Watershed Project
- Okanogan CD
- Sep 15
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 15
Project Overview (2022-2025)
After receiving water quality assistance requests from Palmer Lake community members, the District applied for and acquired funding from the Department of Ecology in 2022 to be available for district staff to provide non-regulatory, district-led services to assist the community and learn more about these concerns.
Concerns included annual algae blooms, fish die-offs, shoreline development violations, preserving the beauty and health of the watershed and surrounding habitats, continued utilization of this recreational area, and the potential for post-fire erosion impacts. These concerns pointed to the need for a monitoring program, additional stakeholder outreach, and project planning in the Palmer Lake watershed to gather community insights, input on resource needs, and create a baseline for monitoring data that will assist in determining the direction for future conservation projects.
Palmer Lake Watershed Background
Palmer Lake is located approximately 6 miles north of Loomis, Washington in Okanogan County. The Palmer Lake watershed is in Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) 49 (Okanogan) and level 12 HUC 170200072007 (Palmer Lake). Palmer Lake has a surface area of 3.19 square miles and a maximum depth of about 75 feet.
The Palmer Lake Watershed covers about 10,900 acres of land with various ownerships including private parcels, Bureau of Land Management, Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife, Tribal land, and other public land.
Six miles downstream of the Canadian border, the Similkameen River meets Palmer Lake outlet, sometimes called Palmer Creek. During seasons of high flow on the Similkameen River, Palmer Creek will flow into the lake. During lower flows in the Similkameen River, Palmer Creek reverses direction and becomes an outlet from Palmer Lake. Sinlahekin Creek drains into Palmer Lake from the south during all times of the year (Era-Miller, 2007).
The lake is unique with a dynamic system where temperatures shift, oxygen levels fluctuate, and water flows in and out throughout the year.
Palmer Mountain Fire
The 2020 Palmer fire burned approximately 18,000 acres south and southeast of Palmer Lake. The fire started 8/18/2020 and was contained by 11/9/2020. This fire created a burn mosaic of moderate to severe intervals leading to a loss of a significant area of forest, woodlands, shrub-steppe, and some damage to agricultural crops.
Post-fire impacts on water quality and aquatic habitats are influenced by fire severity and intensity and include elevated nutrient and sediment levels, loss of vegetation cover, erosion impacts, altered stream flows, increased water temperatures, and more.
Watershed Uses
The lake is an important part of our local landscape and supports fish, wildlife, recreation, agriculture, and lakeside communities. While lake conditions and nutrient levels normally change with the seasons, users of the lake have seen an increase in algae blooms and occasional fish die-offs in recent years.
Indigenous Use
The land, water and other natural resources in the Palmer Lake area are culturally important to the past and current indigenous peoples that are recognized within the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
Agricultural Use
Agricultural use by early settlers in the Palmer Lake area began in late 1800’s.
Current agricultural use in the Palmer Lake watershed consists of hay/silage, orchards, pasture lands and other uses, covering about 1,000 acres.
Recreational Use
Palmer Lake is a popular recreation site for picnicking, swimming, fishing, boating, water skiing, and camping. At the north shore of the lake, the Palmer Lake Campground, owned by the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has seven campsites, picnic tables, a vault toilet, a gravel hand boat launch (Washington Department of Natural Resources, n.d.). At the south shore, the Split Rock Day-Use Area, owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), a concrete boat ramp allows access for boaters, a vault toilet and picnic tables on a sandy beach. (Bureau of Land Management, n.d.)
Bass tournaments are held annually by the Okanogan Bass Club at Palmer Lake, and kokanee have been stocked in Palmer Lake by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (Okanogan Valley Bass Club, n.d.). Other fish species who reside in the lake include burbot, bluegill, peamouth, chiselmouth, common carp, yellow perch, black crappie, rainbow trout, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, largescale sucker, mountain whitefish, northern pikeminnow and pumpkinseed sunfish. (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, n.d.)
Water Quality Monitoring Program
Water quality monitoring was a determined need for this project to help the district observe and gain a better understanding for the lake’s natural cycles and seasonal patterns, stakeholder use, community needs and barriers, and allow us to share meaningful updates and best practices to support water quality improvements with the community.
The district's role is to collect water quality data and transfer knowledge of what we have learned to others by providing outreach, education, and direct technical assistance on a voluntary basis to inform residents what they can do to protect and improve water quality and cost-share funding assistance for eligible projects.
The Okanogan Conservation District is responsible for conducting monitoring efforts in accordance with the approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) and for submitting all monitoring data collected into the Department of Ecology’s Environmental Information Management (EUM) database annually.
It is NOT the duty of the Okanogan Conservation District to decide on public safety or risk related to algae blooms and/or toxins. Any cautions or advisories for the public to follow would come from the Okanogan County Public Health Department (OCPHD) or another respective organization.
Please stay tuned for a follow-up blog post regarding the details and results of the monitoring program to be initiated in the summer 2025.
QAPP
The Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) helps identify water quality conditions and contains history of the area, existing data on water quality monitoring parameters, regulatory criteria, goals and objectives, organization and scheduling for monitoring, sampling and measurement procedures, quality control procedures, sampling process design, field procedures, laboratory procedures, data management procedures, audits and reports and other critical information to direct monitoring efforts.
Learn more about the Palmer Lake QAPP attached here:
Summary of Harmful Algae Blooms
Overview of Toxic Algae
When algae grow very quickly in a body of water, it is known as a “bloom”. Most algae blooms in waterbodies are harmless. Occasionally, however, a harmful algae bloom, or HAB, occurs when certain types of microscopic blue-green algae, also called cyanobacteria, bloom. As the name implies, HABs can be harmful to people and animals (USEPA, 2022). Some amount of algae growth is normal for most lakes during the warm seasons, and lakes can have blooms of algae that are not toxic. Algae growth can happen when excessive nutrient loads, like nitrogen and phosphorus, enter the lake system. Algal blooms can make the water appear green, brown, gold, or red. They often produce scum, mats, foam, or paint-like streaks in the water or clumps on the shore. However, only professional water testing can confirm if HABs and toxins are present. (Fritz, 2020)
Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are a group of microorganisms that live in moist terrestrial and aquatic habitats throughout the world. Several types of cyanobacteria are known to produce a variety of toxins that can cause a range of effects from simple skin rashes to liver and nerve damage and even mortality of fish, wildlife, and rarely, humans (Rosen & St. Amand, 2015).
State Thresholds
These levels are provisional recreational guidelines developed by the Washington Department of Health (DOH) to protect human health. The numbers were set to protect human health when toxins are below the recreational guideline values. When toxic algae are present in a lake, the lake may be unsafe for people and animals. DOH recommends that people and pets stay out of areas where algae scum is present. (King County, 2012)
Toxin | Toxin Recreational Guidance Value
|
Microcystins | >= 8 μg/L |
Anatoxin-a | >= 1 μg/L |
Cylindrospermopsin | >= 15 μg/L |
Saxitoxin | >= 75 μg/L |
Table: Washington State Department of Health freshwater algae recreational guideline levels
Please see this resource for identifying Algae:
Previous Algae Testing
Previous testing for toxins on Palmer Lake have been conducted and reported to the Department of Ecology. In 2018, algae samples were tested for Saxitoxin, Microcystin, Cylindrospermopsin, and Anatoxin-a which all tested below State guidelines. Algae samples were also tested in 2020 with Microcystin and Anatoxin-a concentrations above State guidelines (King County, 2012).
Proposed Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) Actions
The Okanogan Conservation District will assess algae bloom severity and take samples to be analyzed by an authorized laboratory should they occur during the life of this grant. The Okanogan Conservation District will provide collected data to the OCPHD and interested community members for their dissemination.
The Okanogan Conservation District will conduct sampling on algae blooms throughout a monitoring season to be analyzed by an accredited laboratory to determine if the algae bloom is producing toxins above state thresholds that would be potentially harmful to human or animal health. If algae sample are tested and toxins are above state threshold, the Okanogan Conservation District will then notify key partners at the local and state level.
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This project is funded by the Washington State Department of Ecology.
For more details or questions regarding this project, additional water quality resources, and project updates, please contact Okanogan CD's project manager, Chevelle Yeckel:
509-429-5237
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