Becker County Lake Protection Report

Becker County is located in the lakes country of northwest Minnesota. Open water covers 7% of the surface area of Becker County and an additional 16% of the county is covered by wetlands. These resources are valued for their excellent recreation opportunities and water quality. Six different watersheds cover Becker County (Figure 1), which accounts for the wide variety in lake types. Becker County has approximately 487 lakes, and twenty of these lakes have lake associations that are members of Becker County Coalition of Lake Associations (COLA). These lakes are featured in this report, and are scattered fairly evenly around the county (Figure 1). For the purpose of future water planning, the Becker Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) and Becker COLA wanted an evaluation of current lake water quality. Lakes evaluated in this report are indicated in dark blue in Figure 1 and listed in Table 2. Becker County lakes that are members of COLA have been monitored by volunteers off and on from 1993-2011, and have a good data set for evaluation (Table 1). The purpose of this report was to compile all available data for these lakes from all the different sources, evaluate the data quality, identify data gaps, assess the data, and look for water quality trends. This report contains a summary of the current state of 20 selected Becker County COLA lakes and recommendations for future monitoring.