Letcher County Lake Quality

Letcher County has 1 monitored lake — a thin enough sample that one or two stressed lakes can move the county average noticeably. Use the per-lake pages below for what actually matters. Every one of those lake carries recent nutrient and algae readings, so the county-level summary covers the full set rather than a monitored subset. The county's readings sit in the middle of the Kentucky range, with one or two lakes pulling the average up or down depending on year.

Most of the county's monitored lakes are shallow, under 50 feet, which means wind keeps the water column mixed all summer and sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the surface layer whenever the bottom is disturbed. Fishpond Lake has the lowest nutrient and algae readings in the county.