Amherst Millpond

Amherst Millpond sits at a C on the grading scale — not impaired, not pristine, with summer measurements that vary year to year. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI in the eutrophic range signals a lake doing what nutrient-loaded waters do — supporting an active algal community at the cost of clear water. At only 7 ft deep, Amherst Millpond is shallow — wind keeps the water column mixed and sediment resuspension drives phosphorus levels harder to manage. Amherst Millpond is small — 38 acres alongside partial shoreline records — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Amherst Millpond ranks 22 of 28 in Portage County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

An invasive species record — Banded Mystery Snail — has been logged at Amherst Millpond; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. The lake's fish records list 2 species — a varied community without one dominant gamefish. Public access is available — the lake is on the Wisconsin DNR public-access list. Monitoring depth is thin here: the LakeGrade rubric is applied to a small number of sample years, and the grade will be revised as more data accumulates.