Angie Hong
Guest Columnist
At first glance, Shields Lake in the city of Forest Lake appears natural and relatively untouched. There is a tiny city park with a fishing pier at the northeast corner of the lake and a golf course to the north. The rest of the shoreline is undeveloped, fringed by cattails and trees.
Surprisingly, however, the lake has some of the worst water quality in Washington County.broadstreet.zone(48036);
During 2015, water monitoring data showed the lake to have an average phosphorus concentration of 349 micrograms per liter (ug/L), which is eight times higher than the state’s threshold for impairment: 40 ug/L. The water is green, murky and choked with invasive curlyleaf pondweed. In its annual report card, the Met Council gave Shields Lake an F+.
In an effort to help understand what went wrong with little Shields Lake, researchers from the University of St. Thomas and the St. Croix Watershed Research Station recently
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News and other stories about real people, places, and events in Forest Lake and nearby suburbs.