Virginia Lake Water Quality

{{stateName}} has 150 graded lakes in our dataset, sampled across 68 counties, drawing on monitoring by {{agency}} plus federal and volunteer measurements. About 31% of {{stateName}}'s lakes pull an A — 46 top-bracket waters. That high A-share comes mostly from the cold, deep, kettle-formed lakes in the north of the state, which buffer themselves against nutrient inputs.

Eutrophic conditions dominate — nutrient-loaded, productive, with algal pressure that shows up most years in late summer. These lakes tend to be shallow, agricultural-watershed, and over-warmed by the time July ends. The cleanest county on average is Augusta (grade A); the most-stressed is King and Queen. The gap between the top and bottom counties is large enough that "{{stateName}} lake water quality" hides real local variation.