Cle Elum Lake is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

and

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

along the course of the

Cle Elum River The Cle Elum River is a tributary of the Yakima River, approximately 28 miles (45 km) long in the U.S. state of Washington. A Northern Pacific Railway station at the future site of the city of Cle Elum, Washington was named Clealum after the ...

, in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

state

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. At the site of the future city of

Cle Elum, Washington Cle Elum ( ) is a city in Kittitas County, Washington, Kittitas County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The population was 1,872 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. About by car from Seattle, Cle Elum is a popular area ...

, a

Northern Pacific Railway The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, whic ...

station was named Clealum after the Kittitas name Tle-el-Lum (tlielləm), meaning "swift water", referring to the

. The lake was also labeled as ''Kleattam'' Lake in maps of the 1850s.

Location

Cle Elum Lake is the easternmost lake of three large lakes (two are north and one is south of

Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, and ...

) in the

Cascade Range The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

. The middle one, Kachess Lake is also north of I-90 while the westernmost,

Keechelus Lake Keechelus Lake () is a lake and reservoir in the northwest United States, near Hyak in Kittitas County, Washington. Approximately southeast of Seattle and a few miles southeast of Snoqualmie Pass, it is the source of the Yakima River. Keechelus ...

is south of I-90. Cle Elum Lake is part of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

basin, as the Cle Elum River is a tributary of the Yakima River, which is a tributary to the Columbia River.

Usage

The lake is used as a storage

for the Yakima Project, an irrigation project run by the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

. Although a natural lake, Cle Elum Lake's capacity and discharge is controlled by Cle Elum Dam, a 165-foot (50 m) high earthfill structure built in 1933. As a storage reservoir, Cle Elum Lake's active capacity is 436,900 acre feet (539,000,000 m³).

In Pop Culture

* In 1994, the fictional village of Monanash was filmed on Cle Elum Lake for the TV show

Northern Exposure ''Northern Exposure'' is an American Northern comedy-drama television series about the eccentric residents of a fictional small town in Alaska that ran on CBS from July 12, 1990, to July 26, 1995, with a total of 110 episodes. It received 57 ...

.Northern Exposure Episode Guide - Season 6, Episode 8
/ref>

References

External links

Cle Elum Dam

Cle Elum Lake
The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. 2000. * Aerial view of Cle Elum Lake 01A

{{authority control Reservoirs in Washington (state) Lakes of Kittitas County, Washington Buildings and structures in Kittitas County, Washington Protected areas of Kittitas County, Washington Wenatchee National Forest Dams in Washington (state) United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1933