The state Department of General Administration has drawn the lake down about 3 feet this week to accommodate a city of Olympia utility project under Deschutes Parkway.
In addition, the lake’s north basin nearest the Lakefair festivities once again is covered in places with mats of green algae that cling to aquatic plants rooted in the lake’s shallow waters.
Lakefair officials dismissed the lake’s condition as a minor issue that won’t deter crowds.
“The focus of Lakefair is in Heritage Park,” festival president Bob Barnes said. “At least there’s some water in the lake.”
The lake level was lowered Tuesday morning and will stay down as crews install a steel casing 16 feet beneath Deschutes Parkway to hold a 16-inch drinking-water line to serve west Olympia and a 12-inch reclaimed-wastewater line headed for Tumwater, city project manager Tim Richardson said. The lower lake level helps keeps water out of the work zone near Marathon Park, Richardson said.
“We’d prefer not to be doing this during Lakefair, but it was unavoidable,” he said, adding that pumps couldn’t keep up with the water flowing in from the lake.
Lakefair officials learned a couple of weeks ago that the lake would be drawn down during Lakefair, Barnes said.
The only water-related event planned on the lake through Sunday is the West Olympia Rotary’s 18th annual Golf Island shootout, in which golfers vie for the $100,000 hole-in-one top prize.
“Golf Island is still floating,” Barnes said.
The average water depth this week in the lake’s north basin is about 8 feet, said Larry Kessel, who helps manage the lake for the state Department of General Administration. In the south basin, which is much shallower and filled with more river sediment, the lake draw-down has exposed the river channel.
Kessel said the plant growth and algae this year are not as pronounced in the lake as they were during the 2008 Lakefair weekend.
But it was thick enough to force the Seattle Outboard Association to cut it back before conducting last weekend’s Capital Lakefair Regatta outboard boat races, said Nathaniel Jones, a General Administration senior facilities manager.
The man-made lake, formed in 1951 with the placement of the Fifth Avenue Dam, has filled with about 1.7 million cubic yards of sediment, reducing lake volume by about 60 percent, according to a 2006 United States Geological Survey study.
An advisory committee that has been studying lake-management issues for several years is expected next month to recommend to General Administration that the lake revert to a Deschutes River estuary.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444
jdodge@theolympian.com
