Bow Lake is a small lake in

SeaTac, Washington SeaTac () is a city in southern King County, Washington, United States. The city is an inner-ring suburb of Seattle and part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The name "SeaTac" is derived from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, itself a ...

, United States. It is located next to

Seattle–Tacoma International Airport Seattle–Tacoma International Airport is the primary international airport serving Seattle and its surrounding metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is in the city of SeaTac, which was named after the airport's nickname Se ...

, just across Route 99. The lake has played a key role in the airport's history, and the airport was originally named for it. Due to rapid urbanization and alteration of the lake's watershed, water quality has deteriorated significantly. A major drinking water pipeline runs near the lake.

Geography

Bow Lake is one of several small lakes in the region, including Lake Burien and Angle Lake. These lakes formed as glaciers retreated during the Last Ice Age, and are spring-fed. Native Americans used these lakes for fishing and hunting waterfowl. Before the airport was built, the area around the lake was largely rural. It is now heavily urbanized, and is surrounded by airport hotels and a retirement community.

Seattle–Tacoma International Airport

was built in the early 1940s, in response to the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

and the entrance of the United States into

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. A site for SeaTac airport near

Lake Sammamish Lake Sammamish is a freshwater lake east of Seattle in King County, Washington, United States. The lake is long and wide, with a maximum depth of and a surface area of . It lies east of Lake Washington and west of the Sammamish Plateau, a ...

was initially preferred., but the nearby

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

posed safety issues. At that time, Bow Lake was located in an undeveloped area, with only a small private airfield. Monetary incentives from

Tacoma Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, northwest of Mount ...

and Pierce County ultimately helped sway the decision, despite warnings of heavy

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus and is heavily influenc ...

at the site. This included a $100,000 contribution from the city of Tacoma.

Pollution

In 1997, King County, the

Port of Seattle The Port of Seattle is a public agency that is in King County, Washington. It oversees the seaport of Seattle as well as Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. With a portfolio of properties ranging from parks and waterfront real estate, to ...

, the city of SeaTac and the city of

Des Moines Des Moines is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities in Iowa, most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is the county seat of Polk County, Iowa, Polk County with parts extending into Warren County, Iowa, Wa ...

conducted an extensive study of Des Moines Creek and its watershed, which includes Bow Lake. It found that Bow Lake has very poor water quality, polluting Des Moines Creek downstream. Nutrient concentrations are high, leading to toxic

algal blooms Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, suc ...

. This causes

dissolved oxygen Oxygen saturation (symbol SO2) is a relative measure of the concentration of oxygen that is dissolved or carried in a given medium as a proportion of the maximal concentration that can be dissolved in that medium at the given temperature. It can ...

levels to decline significantly, which is harmful to aquatic ecosystems.

Fecal coliform A fecal coliform (British: faecal coliform) is a facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, gram-negative, non- sporulating bacterium. Coliform bacteria generally originate in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Fecal coliforms are capable of growth ...

levels are high. Development near the airport has led to a large impervious area that drains into the lake, harming its water quality.

Pumpkinseed sunfish The pumpkinseed (''Lepomis gibbosus''), also referred to as sun perch, pond perch, common sunfish, punkie, sunfish, sunny, and kivver, is a small to medium–sized freshwater fish of the genus ''Lepomis'' (true sunfishes), from the sunfish fami ...

and

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus nigricans'') is a carnivorous, freshwater fish, freshwater, ray-finned fish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, native to the eastern United States, eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada an ...

have been found in the lake.

Bow Lake Pipeline

Before the 1950s, there were three pipelines that brought drinking water to Seattle from the Cedar River watershed and Lake Youngs. The fourth pipeline, known as Cedar River Pipeline Number Four or the Bow Lake Pipeline was built to provide a direct supply of water from Lake Youngs to the area near the airport. Previously, water was pumped into a reservoir (not Bow Lake itself) from

West Seattle West Seattle is a conglomeration of List of neighborhoods in Seattle, neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington, United States. It comprises two of the List of neighborhoods in Seattle, thirteen districts, Delridge, Seattle, Delridge and Southwest, ...

, which was straining the water system there. The new pipeline entered service in 1954, and supplies the airport area and West Seattle.

Bow Lake Recycling and Transfer Station

King County's largest

recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the propert ...

transfer station is located near Bow Lake, next to

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...

. The station sorts incoming recyclable materials for reprocessing, and sends waste to the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill.

References

{{reflist Lakes of Washington (state) Lakes of King County, Washington SeaTac, Washington Seattle–Tacoma International Airport