Lake Placid
Essex County, New York2,173 acresView mapDirections
NY DEC publishes the water-quality measurements for Lake Placid. Here is what has been measured.
- 118 ft max depth
- Limited data
Lake Placid in Essex County, New York has water-quality measurements published by NY DEC, shown here as reported. Water clarity: 23.1 ft visibility. Surface area: 2173 acres.
Lake Placid is a 2,173-acre lake in Essex County, New York with an estimated average depth of about 118 feet.
Source: EPA Water Quality Portal sampling records, NYSDEC, last sampled 2020-09-20. Methodology: how these readings are compared.
What Lake Placid is good for
From access and monitoring records, not editorial picks.
- Clear water23.1 ft of visibility
- Big water2,173 acres
Swimming conditions
No readingLimited data
Nutrient and algae readings are not a swimming clearance. Check local advisories before you swim.
Whether Lake Placid is safe to swim in today is a call for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the county health department, who post current advisories. LakeQuality does not issue swimming clearances.
Water quality measurements for Lake Placid
These are the measurements NY DEC publishes for Lake Placid, shown as reported. The condition class beside each reading is the EPA National Lakes Assessment class for this lake’s ecoregion.
Crystal clear, you can see 23.1 ft down. TSI 32.
| Measure | Reading | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| Water clarity (Secchi depth) | 23.1ft | Measured, not scored How deep a black-and-white disk stays visible from the surface. Higher is clearer. |
| Total phosphorus | No reading The nutrient that most limits algae growth in freshwater. More phosphorus, more algae potential. | |
| Chlorophyll-a (algae) | No reading The green pigment in algae — a direct measure of how much algae is in the water. | |
| Trophic state (TSI)Carlson's 0–100 index of how much algae a lake can support, from clarity, phosphorus and chlorophyll-a. | 32 | Oligotrophic OligotrophicMesotrophicEutrophicHypereutrophic |
Low nutrients, clear water. No reading is a swimming clearance.
Ask about Lake Placid
Answers come straight from the public measurements and survey records on this page.
Lake Details
Max depth
~118 ft est.
Surface area
2,173 acres
Depth marked “est.” is a modeled maximum from GLOBathy (Khazaei et al. 2022, CC0), not a measured survey. New York has not published bathymetry for Lake Placid.
Lake Size & Watershed
Watershed (drainage) area
22 sq mi
HydroLAKES / HydroSHEDS
Shoreline
20.5 mi
HydroLAKES / HydroSHEDS
Elevation
1,864 ft
Size, shoreline, and watershed area from HydroLAKES (HydroSHEDS). Mean depth here is modelled, not surveyed — HydroLAKES v1.0 estimates lake depth from surrounding terrain rather than from soundings. Treat it as an approximation, and prefer a state bathymetric survey where one exists.
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Stays near Lake Placid
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Fishing Lake Placid
Reservoir Info (USACE NID)
Lake Placid is a man-made reservoir impounded by the Lake Placid Dam (completed 1904), built primarily for recreation on the OUTLET BROOK; concrete-type dam, 7 ft tall and 131 ft long.
- Surface area
- 2,173 ac
- Normal storage
- 112,996 ac-ft
- Max storage
- 112,996 ac-ft
- Drainage area
- 19.85 sq mi
- Hazard class
- Low
- Owner
- LAKE PLACID SHORE OWNERS' ASSOCIATION INC.
All listed purposes: Recreation;Water Supply.
Source: USACE National Inventory of Dams, NID ID NY00216 · Operator website
Nearby Lakes in Essex County
Frequently asked questions about Lake Placid
Where is Lake Placid?
- Lake Placid is a lake in Essex County, New York. Its water-quality measurements are published by NY DEC and shown on this page as reported.
What is the water quality of Lake Placid?
- Lake Placid in Essex County, New York has water-quality measurements published by NY DEC, shown here as reported. Water clarity: 23.1 ft visibility. Surface area: 2173 acres.
Is Lake Placid safe to swim in?
- Nutrient and algae readings are not a swimming clearance. Check local advisories before you swim.
How deep is Lake Placid?
- No published bathymetric survey covers Lake Placid, so its depth has not been measured. The HydroLAKES global model estimates an average depth of about 118 feet, but that is a modelled estimate derived from surrounding terrain rather than a measurement on the water, so treat it as approximate. The lake covers 2173 acres.
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Where this data comes from
8 measurements from 1 monitoring station, 2020. Retrieved from the EPA Water Quality Portal on 2026-08-02.
Collected and reported by
- North American Lake Management Society
NALMS8 samples · 2020
Monitoring station identifiers (1)
EPA condition classes from the National Lakes Assessment (EPA 841-R-24-006, Table 6-3), applied by ecoregion. See where the data comes from and data sources.
Other records on this page
Lake size & watershed from HydroLAKES (HydroSHEDS)