Echo Lake (Charleston, Vermont)

Echo Lake
Location	Charleston, Orleans County, Vermont
Coordinates
Primary outflows	Clyde River
Basin countries	United States
Max. length	1.5 mi (2.4 km)
Max. width	0.75 mi (1.21 km)
Surface area	530 acres (2.1 km2)
Max. depth	129 ft (39 m)
Surface elevation	1,300 feet (400 m)

Echo Lake is located in the town of Charleston in Orleans County, Vermont, an area known as the Northeast Kingdom. It is one of only two deep, cold, and oligotrophic lakes in the Clyde River system. The first Surveyor General of Vermont, Whitelaw, gave it the name of Echo Pond because when any sound was produced in its vicinity it was reverberated in various directions, producing a series of echoes.

The freshwater lake covers 530 acres (2.1 km²) and is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long and 0.75 miles (1.21 km) at its widest; its maximum depth is 129 feet (39 m). The lake is fed by the outlet from Lake Seymour. The lake empties into the Clyde River, Lake Memphremagog and, eventually, Canada's St. Lawrence River.

A dam is used for hydroelectric power. Construction was completed in 1922. It is owned by Citizens Utilities Company. The dam is concrete. The core is homogeneous concrete. The foundation is rock. The height is 16 feet (4.9 m) by 120 feet (37 m). Maximum discharge is 693 cubic feet (19.6 m³) per second. Its capacity is 5,000 acre feet (6,200,000 m³). Normal storage is 3,180 acre feet (3,920,000 m³). It drains an area of 24 square miles (62 km²).

The dam was reconstructed in 1984.

The lake supports a coldwater fishery. There are wild lake trout. It also has rainbow trout (wild and stocked), brook trout (stocked), rainbow smelt, yellow perch, smallmouth bass, chain pickerel, longnose sucker, white sucker, various species of minnow and probably others uncataloged.

External links

• Photos of Echo Lake