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LakeQuality

Editorial Policy

Last updated: June 2026

This page explains who is behind LakeQuality, how our pages are produced, and the standards every page on lakequality.org is held to. We publish it so readers, journalists, and search engines can judge our work by a clear, stated process rather than guesswork.

Who runs LakeQuality

LakeQuality is an independent publication built and maintained by the Lake Quality Team. We are not funded, owned, or directed by any of the agencies, companies, or organizations that appear in our data. We do not accept paid placements, sponsored rankings, or fees to add, alter, or remove an entry. Our editorial judgment is not for sale. The editors and desks accountable for our coverage are listed on our editorial team page.

How our content is produced

LakeQuality covers U.S. lake and freshwater quality. We build our pages from the EPA Water Quality Portal, the Minnesota DNR LakeFinder, and the Wisconsin DNR Surface Water dataset: we gather the primary records, process them with documented, repeatable methods, and present them as pages a non-specialist can read. We ingest EPA Water Quality Portal samples from the June-September index period — chlorophyll-a, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, turbidity, true colour and Secchi depth — and grade each lake against the condition thresholds EPA publishes for its ecoregion in the National Lakes Assessment 2022 Technical Support Document (EPA 841-R-24-006, Table 6-3). Those thresholds are the 75th and 95th percentiles of least-disturbed reference lakes within each ecoregion, so a lake is compared with its own regional peers rather than a national average. Chlorophyll-a is the primary indicator because it measures algal biomass directly; phosphorus and nitrogen are the causal drivers. Water clarity is NOT graded — EPA assigns no condition class to Secchi depth, and low clarity is either redundant with chlorophyll-a or caused by natural dissolved colour or suspended sediment. We report clarity and explain what is driving it. Full thresholds, the composite rule and the evidence bar are on our /methodology page.

We are upfront that this is a data-publishing operation, not a wire service of on-the-ground reporters. Where we add narrative, that narrative describes and interprets the underlying public data — it never invents facts the data does not contain. Every page is checked against the source, and the methodology behind any score or ranking is documented and linkable.

Editorial standards

  • Primary source only. Every figure traces back to the EPA Water Quality Portal, the Minnesota DNR LakeFinder, and the Wisconsin DNR Surface Water dataset, cited and linkable on the page where it appears.
  • No invented numbers. If a value is not in the underlying public data, it does not appear on lakequality.org. We never generate synthetic statistics to fill gaps.
  • Documented methodology. Rankings, grades, and composite scores are editorial calculations derived from public data using stated, repeatable formulas — not certifications or endorsements.
  • Dated and refreshed. Refreshed every four months as new state-agency samples are pushed to the EPA Water Quality Portal. Ice-out observations, fish-species records, and invasive-species listings refresh on the cadence each state’s DNR publishes them — typically annually for ice data and quarterly for invasive-waters updates.
  • Corrections welcome. When a reader or the source identifies an error, we fix it — see our Corrections Policy.

Verification and fact-checking

Because our numbers come straight from the EPA Water Quality Portal, the Minnesota DNR LakeFinder, and the Wisconsin DNR Surface Water dataset, our verification work is about faithful processing rather than re-reporting. The detail of how we check figures before publication is described in our Fact-Checking Policy.

Ownership and funding transparency

LakeQuality is part of a small portfolio of independent public-data sites. The site is free to read and is supported by display advertising served by third parties, which is kept separate from our editorial and data decisions. We do not sell personal data. Where an outbound link is an affiliate link, it is disclosed and never changes our editorial judgment.

Contact

Questions about how a page was produced, or about these standards? hello@lakequality.org. See also our About page and our Corrections Policy.