Lac qui Parle River Watershed Monitoring and Assessment Report

The Lac qui Parle River Watershed drains an area of approximately 1,100 square miles (704,000 acres) in eastern South Dakota and southwestern Minnesota. Approximately 70% of this area lies within portions of Minnesota's Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, and Lincoln Counties, spanning an area from the South Dakota border on the western end of the basin to its confluence with the Minnesota River, just west of the city of Montevideo. Results presented in this report indicate significantly degraded water quality and biological communities throughout the watershed. Overall, scores of biological communities in this watershed were resoundingly poor; not a single general use stream in the Lac qui Parle River Watershed fully supported aquatic life use. Only one stream (< 3% of assessed reaches) was determined to be fully supporting aquatic life for modified use waters (which have lower biological expectations than general use waters).