The Lake Lawrence Lake Management District (LMD) is an organized group of property owners governed by the Revised Code of Washington 36.61 and a Thurston County Board of County Commissioners Resolution establishing the LMD for a 10-year period.  The resolution explains what work the LMD will be chartered to perform, what property parcels will be included in the LMD boundaries and how rates and charges for the LMD fees will be collected through your property taxes to provide the budget to accomplish the workplan of the LMD.  The Lake Lawrence LMD is comprised of over 600 property owners in and around Lake Lawrence that have either direct access or HOA community property access to Lake Lawrence.  The LMD is governed by a LMD Steering Committee (SC) comprised of volunteer property owners like you with oversight provided by a Thurston County Point of Contact appointed by the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners.  The LMD is required by county and state regulations to hire a licensed and qualified aquatic contractor to perform any herbicide treatment or large-scale vegetation removal on the lake. 

The LMD SC that governs the LMD is comprised of LMD members (you) that are either elected or appointed by the four HOA Board of Directors that make up a large part of the LMD and by appointed residents of the private parcels along Lake Point Drive, Pleasant Beach Drive and Lake Lawrence Road.  LMD meetings are scheduled a year in advance and included in our meeting minutes and notices via our email contact list.  Everyone is invited to attend and participate. You need to attend meetings to engage your voice.

The LMD is funded by a fee each year through your property taxes.  Your fee amount depends on where you live on the lake.  We have three fee categories: 1) Lake 2) Canal and 3) Upland.  If you live on the lake your fee is ~$320 a year, canal is ~ $160 upland is ~$80.  LMD members receive a 50% discount on their basic storm water fees from the county, regardless of your fee category, which amounts to ~$35 a year.  Because we are a LMD we also receive ~$18,500 a year from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife for the public boat launch on Lake Lawrence and another ~$9,400 a year from Thurston County for the undeveloped 15-acre county park that is adjacent to the WDFW Boat Launch.

The SC holds meetings and decides how money is spent to care for our lake.  Approximately 30% of the money goes to the county for administration costs.  Approximately 60% goes to professional services contracts to treat the lake for aquatic weeds, algae, noxious weeds and invasive weed species and approximately 10% is used to pay for equipment, notices, meetings and miscellaneous costs to help our members and keep you informed.  Budget information is provided at all LMD meetings.

The LMD has a YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lakelawrence that you will want to check out as it contains a lot of videos about the history of the lake, places around the lake you might want to visit or know about, how the lake is maintained (surveys, treatments, water quality monitoring, etc.). Informational videos on how you can help keep our lake clean and healthy and much more. Subscribe to the channel so you receive a notification when new videos are posted.

LMD has a new website https://www.lakelawrencelakemanagementdistrict.com . Be sure to check it out as there is a lot of information there!

We maintain an email contact list ([email protected]) that is used solely for the purpose of informing and notifying LMD members of things you need to know. We will ask you to verify your address on Lake Lawrence so we can confirm you are a member of the LMD.  Only members are included on our contact list. Emails sent to groups are sent BCC so your email addresses are not disseminated to everyone.  Some of those things we send via our email contact list are:

•  Notifications:
  • Toxic Algae Blooms (Swim/Fish Hazard)
  • Floating Island Warnings (Boat Safety Hazard)
  • WDFW fish plants in the lake
  • Aquatic and Noxious Weed Treatment
  • Upcoming LMD Meetings & Agendas
  • Missing or found equipment (boats, kayaks, paddle boards, floats, etc) Trying to reunite valuable equipment with their owners.
  • Theft happening on our lake
• LMD Meeting Minutes
• County & State regulation updates that pertain specifically to lakes (i.e. Washington State Shoreling Management Act (SMA), County Shoreline Management Program (SMP), Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO), etc)
• Studies that directly relate to our lake (i.e. FEMA Flood Risk Study, Integrated Aquatic Vegetation Management Plan, etc.)
• Lake Survey Results

NOTE:  Be sure to check your junk mail and/or add the following email to your favorites so they do not go to junk mail: [email protected]  .  This is the only email address that will send you group emails from the LMD Steering Committee.

All Committees/Sub-Committees are volunteers.  We always need more volunteers.  If interested please contact Barry at the above email address or by phone at 253-341-6059.  Some of the committees are budget, lake surveys, annual meeting/BBQ, dredging, annual lake cleanup, lake level and other environmental monitoring, and contracting.

Don’t be a stranger, the only way to make our lake better is by working together.