Started up there few years ago but got stuck on the Cross Bronx Expressway for hours very early in the morning like 5 am so we turned around.
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I doubt that science was used to determine that Lake George is the cleanest in the country. It has towns, boats and houses on it, with their associated septic fields, lawn chemicals, gas engine residues and stream runoff.
Crater Lake OTOH has no development and almost no drainage basin, so its pretty much as clean as the rain and snow that falls on it.
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From the article
Full disclosure, over the years the lake has had various issues with e. coli (including closures here and there of Million Dollar Beach) but for the most part has recovered quickly from such events.
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I read the article and the link to “A-Z Animals” who dreamed up the list and don’t see any methodology at all, much less any objective scientific methodology.
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Lake George Tourist board?
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At least their clickbait called it “best” which is subjective and also without any criteria.
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I stayed overnight at Lake George when I went up to pick up my Hornbeck. Can’t say I was that impressed with the Lake. For me, I pick some of the large lakes in the Western Maine mountain region, e.g. the Richardson, Mooselookmeguntic, Rangeley, Flagstaff, and few others farther north.
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Lake George is a nice lake, but the cleanest? I have no analytical data, but in my experience some of the lakes further north in the ADKS with less intensive shoreline development seem to be cleaner … Long Lake, Blue Mountain, Upper and Lower St. Regis, Spitfire, Rainbow, Upper Saranac, and others come to mind.
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I used to do work for the National Park Service. In the 1990s I saw a park publication about researchers testing the clarity of the water in Crater Lake. The bottom line was that after the test it was necessary to revise the official standard for how clear water could be. There’s absolutely no way any normal lake has water as clean as Crater Lake.
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Lake George isn’t even the cleanest lake in New York state. One of the Finger Lakes, Skaneateles, is supposedly the second cleanest lake in the country behind Crater Lake.
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The BQE is also the cleanest road in America!
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Here is quantitative data. See for yourself. Compare all lakes to Oquaga Lake in Broome County.
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/c32878596a0a47deb5f97ea5e07ec9c5
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This is such a strange, circular topic. Does it really matter what the cleanest lake really is as long as it is relatively clean? No one is going to go on the EPA websites for impaired waters and look up in the tables what the known impacts are and whether they have filed TMDLs. Well I have to because I need to find this information for work, but most people are not.
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Depends on your definition of “clean.” If you mean water transparency, as measured by a Secchi disk, Crater Lake is the likely winner. However, if you include dissolved constituents in your definition of “clean,” another lake may be considered the cleanest. All surface lakes are impacted by atmospheric inputs, which add suspended and dissolved constituents to the waterbody. I would imagine western forest fires and volcanic activity, along with anthropogenic inputs would certainly impact Crater Lake. If dissolved constituents are used to measure “clean,” Crater Lake might not be the winner but either way, Lake George would not win…however, it is still a beautiful lake IMHO.
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I haven’t paddled much outside of Minnesota, but we have plenty of lakes here of various degrees of cleanliness. From my experience, the further you get away from cities and people, the cleaner the lakes get. Most of the problem is invasive species, like Eurasian milfoil. But boaters and lawns create other pollution.
My favorite lakes are the quiet smaller lakes in northern Minnesota with few or no cabins and walk-in access only.
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