Cedar Island Lake

Cedar Island Lake grades an F: water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate poorly, placing it among the most stressed lakes monitored in Minnesota. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. The lake's maximum depth is not yet documented in state morphometric records — context for its physical structure remains limited. The lake's surface area is not consistently recorded across state datasets — physical context remains partial. Cedar Island Lake ranks 80 of 95 in Hennepin County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

No invasive species are currently listed at Cedar Island Lake — the lake remains off the Minnesota infested-waters roster. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Cedar Island Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. The lake lacks a documented public access point, so visitor use is limited. Ice-out has been logged at Cedar Island Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 5 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. 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.