Washoe County Lake Quality

Washoe County has 61 monitored lakes, enough that within-county variation matters as much as the county average. Some are deep glacial basins, others are shallow agricultural-watershed waters, and the measurements reflect that mix. 3 of those lakes carry recent nutrient and algae readings. The county-level summary describes that subset, not every water body listed. For Washoe County the spread behind the average matters more than the average itself: a few nutrient-rich lakes among many clear ones produce the same figure as the inverse.

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. Boulder Reservoir has the lowest nutrient and algae readings in the county.