Institute for Watershed Studies

Location: Institute for Watershed Studies >> Lake Studies >> Lake Whatcom

The City of Bellingham and Western Washington University have collaborated on investigations of the water quality in Lake Whatcom since the early 1960s. Beginning in 1988, a monitoring program was initiated by the City and the Institute for Watershed Studies that was designed to provide long-term water quality data for the lake.

Although the primary objective of the Lake Whatcom Monitoring Project is to provide long-term data for the lake and its tributaries, addition research is conducted annually to evaluate the effectiveness of storm water treatment systems in the lake's watershed, and to model the hydrology of the lake. The monitoring project also serves as a foundation for a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate research projects.

Online Reports

Annual reports have been written each year since 1992. In addition, there are a number of special project reports that supplement the annual reports. Printed copies of all reports are archived in the IWS library, and recent reports are available from the City of Bellingham Public Works Department.

Online copies of the annual reports and special projects are available in pdf format from 1998 to the present (Online PDF Reports) and in html format from 1997 to the present (Online HTML Reports).

The pdf reports are very large documents that duplicate the printed reports, excluding only large image files and data reports not generated by IWS (e.g., AmTest reports).

The html reports have been recreated from original report files to provide a more flexible and accesible online report structure. The html report conversions represent an ongoing effort, and all converted html reports are posted as draft documents. Any feedback or comments on the html reports should be directed to the IWS director.

Electronic Data Files

Electronic data are available for most of the parameters sampled by IWS. Data provided by the City of Bellingham (e.g., coliforms, THMs) and other commercial laboratories (e.g., metals, TOC) are not posted in electronic format, but are included in the printed copies of the annual reports.

A simplistic online service of the data is available here in Static Tables and in Dynamic Online Charts. The static format is recommended for slower computers.

Older Lake Whatcom Annual Reports

Older annual reports are available online, directly scanned from the physical paper copies.