Spotlight: Lake Pepin

Bringing Lake Pepin Back from the Brink

Located at the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota, and St. Croix rivers, Lake Pepin is 40,000 acres of recreational paradise and a drainage point for more than half of Minnesota’s freshwater. In 2004, Lake Pepin gained another distinction—it was added to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) list of impaired waters.

In response to MPCA’s request, the Water Resources Center created a Lake Pepin Science Advisory Panel, made up of water experts and professionals from around the region. The panel’s charge was to develop a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the lake, a quantifiable prescription for reducing industrial, agricultural and consumer-based pollutants upstream. While the TMDL is not yet completed, the panel’s findings point to a need to reduce sediment and phosphorous in some of Lake Pepin’s major tributaries by one-half, by 20 percent in all other tributaries, and by 70 percent from wastewater treatment plants in the Lake Pepin area. More importantly, the science supporting the panel’s recommendations is so solid that the MPCA is now refining its standards for phosphorus in Lake Pepin—findings that will have implications for waters throughout the state.

“There’s more than just Lake Pepin at stake,” says Faye Sleeper, co-director of the Water Resources Center and panel member. “Lake Pepin is an indicator of the health of the waterways that drain into it. Keeping this lake healthy means keeping rivers and lakes in lots of places healthy.”

Lake Pepin