Lake Auburn is a 9.14 km2 (3.53 square miles) lake that provides drinking water for municipal customers primarily in Lewiston and Auburn. The largest inputs of water come as surface water from the Basin and Townsend Brook and via precipitation and groundwater. The largest outflows are withdrawals for the water treatment facility (~30,300 m3 or 8 million gallons per day), evaporation, and streamflow toward the Androscoggin River via Bobbin Mill Brook. More than 70% of the watershed is forested, and the watershed is managed to preserve water quality.

Because of the high water quality, Lake Auburn supports a cold-water fishery and the water districts are not required to filter the water prior to treatment for delivery. Protecting both the filtration waiver–which saves water customers tens of thousands of dollars annually–and the cold-water fishery are priorities in lake and watershed management. Both were threatened in 2012 when early ice-out, warm temperatures, and high levels of nutrients in the water resulted in high algal populations, reduced oxygen in the bottom waters, and a fish kill. The buoy was installed in the summer of 2013 in part to better monitor lake conditions.

Return to the Lake Auburn Buoy Page