Pine River Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy Report

The Pine River Watershed (the Pine) consists of approximately 501,000 acres (783 square miles) of
mostly forests, wetlands, and lakes, and increasing residential development. It is located in the center of
the northern half of the Upper Mississippi Basin. The major communities in the Pine include Breezy
Point, Crosslake, Fifty Lakes, Pine River, Manhattan Beach, Emily, Jenkins, and Chickamaw Beach. Major
Lakes include The Whitefish Chain of Lakes, Pelican Lake, Lake Emily, Roosevelt, and Pine Mountain.
Counties in the Pine include parts of Crow Wing, Cass, Aitkin and Hubbard (Figure 1). During the intensive watershed monitoring (IWM) process for the Pine, 25 streams and 112 lakes were
assessed, and data was utilized from a combination of Surface Water Assessment Grant (SWAG) work,
the Citizen Lake and Stream Monitoring Programs (CMPs), and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
(MPCA) lake sampling. Although water quality is generally good in the Pine, there are important lakes
and streams that are showing trends toward declining water quality, such as Whitefish Lake, Bertha
Lake, Deep Portage Lake, and Island-Loon Lake. In addition to water bodies showing declining trends
(but still meeting aquatic life and aquatic use standards), several water bodies have been identified as
having impaired biology (streams) or impaired by nutrients (lakes). These include Jail Lake, Kego Lake,
Lows Lake, Lake Emily, and Mitten Lake, and Arvig Creek, Willow Creek, Wilson Creek, and the South
Fork of the Pine River. Three of these lakes, Mitten, Lows, and Emily, and all four streams were listed as
impaired in 2016, after the draft TMDL for the Pine had already been completed. TMDLs for Mitten Lake
and Lake Emily will be completed at a later time, Lows Lake was determined to have a “natural
background” impairment and so no TMDL will be completed for that lake.