Minnesota Pollution Control: Several Woodbury Lakes Are 'Impaired'

A laundry list of Washington County lakes and rivers, as well as several unnamed creeks, have been deemed "impaired waters" by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and several of those bodies are located in Woodbury.

The Minnesota 2016 List of Impaired Waters list published at the end of July includes Tanners, Wilmes, Carver, Colby, La, Fish and Margrafs lakes in Woodbury, as well as the Mississippi River Pool 2, which stretches through Washington County, said the Woodbury Bulletin.

"Several of these bodies of water have eutrophication biological indicators, meaning that too many nitrates and phosphates have caused algae growth that depletes water-oxygen levels for aquatic organisms," the article said. "This condition was reported in Colby, Fish, La, Markgrafs and Wilmes lakes."

The federal Clean Water Act requires the MPCA to: Assess all waters of the state to determine if they meet water quality standards; create a list of impaired waters that do not meet standards, and update the list every even-numbered year; and set pollutant reduction goals needed to restore impaired waters. A body of water is considered “impaired” if it fails to meet one or more water quality standards.

"Minnesota water quality standards protect lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands by defining how much of a pollutant — bacteria, nutrients, turbidity, mercury, etc. — can be in water before it is no longer drinkable, swimmable, fishable, or useable in other, designated ways, called 'beneficial uses,'" reports the MPCA.

Waters that do not meet their designated uses because of water quality standard violations are listed as impaired. Monitoring suggests that about 40 percent of Minnesota's lakes and streams make that cut due to conventional pollutants. MPCA reps say that proportion is comparable to the rate in other states.

The accompanying photo is courtesy of the Washington County Facebook Page.