You may have noticed that water levels at Lake Washington beaches are very low.

But if you think there might be some connection with the drought that is now gripping much of the western U.S., think again.

“No, it’s not connected at all with the drought,” according to Marian Valentine, a manager with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Valentine oversees operations at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. The locks, along with the Lake Washington Ship Canal, were built almost a century ago to connect Lake Washington with Puget Sound.

But the locks also act as a dam between the freshwater of the lakes and the salt water of Puget Sound, which is more than 20 feet lower in elevation.