Silver Lake TMDL

Silver Lake was listed as an impaired water by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) on the 2002 303d list. The impaired use is aquatic recreation, with the stressor identified as "nutrient/ eutrophication biological indicators." Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). The Silver Lake watershed is located in the southwest portion of the Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) and is within the Upper Mississippi Watershed which area entirely within the North Central Hardwood Forest Ecoregion. Portions of four cities and three counties are contained within the Silver Lake watershed. Silver Lake is a eutrophic lake. TP concentrations have improved since the 1980s, with annual means ranging from approximately 48 to 70 μg/L within the last ten years. The improvement in TP does not appear to have led to improvements in chlorophyll-a concentrations and transparency has fluctuated up and down since the 1980s.