Are Clark County streams improving or getting worse?
It usually takes many years of data gathering to answer this question about a specific stream. Water quality data collected in Salmon Creek suggests that water chemistry is staying about the same. Testing from the 1970s until the late 1990s in Burnt Bridge Creek showed that there was an improvement in the amount of fecal coliform bacteria, but few other changes since the 1970s. Testing in Lacamas Lake has shown a significant improvement in the amount of nutrients entering the lake since the early 1980s, but not any change during the last five years of testing. Considering the rapid growth of Clark County’s population in recent years, it’s considered a minor success to prevent streams from becoming worse.
