1
BZumbra-Sunny Lake
Carver County, Minnesota · mi from Parley Lake
- +Two grade letters higher (F → B)
- ++8 ft water clarity
- +Lower phosphorus (27.6 vs 100 µg/L)
Cleaner Lakes Than Parley Lake
5 higher-graded lakes within 30 miles, ranked by grade improvement and proximity.
Parley Lake carries a Grade F (Very Poor) water quality score. Within 30 miles, 5 lakes hold a higher grade. Zumbra-Sunny Lake (Carver County, Grade B, null mi away) is the closest meaningful upgrade.
Reviewed by LakeQuality Editorial Team · Updated
2
CWaconia Lake
Carver County, Minnesota · mi from Parley Lake
- +Two grade letters higher (F → C)
- ++5.5 ft water clarity
- +Lower phosphorus (30 vs 100 µg/L)
3
CAuburn Lake
Carver County, Minnesota · mi from Parley Lake
- +Two grade letters higher (F → C)
- ++4.6 ft water clarity
- +Lower phosphorus (31 vs 100 µg/L)
4
CEast Auburn Lake
Carver County, Minnesota · mi from Parley Lake
- +Two grade letters higher (F → C)
- ++3.2 ft water clarity
- +Lower phosphorus (57.5 vs 100 µg/L)
5
CSteiger Lake
Carver County, Minnesota · mi from Parley Lake
- +Two grade letters higher (F → C)
- ++3.2 ft water clarity
- +Lower phosphorus (43.9 vs 100 µg/L)
Reading the cohort
5 cleaner lakes sit within 30 miles of Parley Lake in the EPA water-quality dataset. With that many higher-grade neighbors close by, Parley Lake's Grade F reflects something specific to the lake itself — not a regional water-quality ceiling. The neighbor list below isn't a small set of marginal upgrades; it's a real cohort of meaningfully cleaner choices for the same Minnesota weekend.
The closest cleaner alternative — Zumbra-Sunny Lake in Carver County, Grade B — sits miles from Parley Lake. At that distance, the substitution cost is essentially zero: same drive time, same regional access, demonstrably cleaner water on the EPA indicators. For repeat visitors who care about clarity or phosphorus levels, swapping the routine to Zumbra-Sunny Lake is mostly a habit change rather than a logistics change.
The EPA water-quality grading combines clarity (Secchi depth), phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a measurements from state environmental sampling. A higher letter grade reflects measurably cleaner water on those indicators, not subjective beauty or access quality — a Grade A lake might have worse boat-launch facilities or shoreline access than a Grade C neighbor, so the ranking is one input alongside the rest of trip planning. See the methodology page for the full grading formula.
How this list is built
Every lake on LakeQuality has a calculated grade from EPA Water Quality Portal samples — secchi depth, total phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a measured against Metropolitan Council thresholds. To suggest cleaner alternatives, we filter lakes within 30 miles to those with a strictly higher numeric score, then rank by grade improvement with a small proximity tiebreak. Cross-state and limited-data lakes are excluded so the list stays locally relevant.