Clearwater Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Clearwater Lake pulls an A: clarity at 55.0 ft and 10 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Wisconsin. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 28 puts Clearwater Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. The lake bottoms out at 48 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 360 acres and partial shoreline records put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Clearwater Lake ranks 62 of 140 in Oneida County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Eurasian watermilfoil has been documented at Clearwater Lake, requiring shoreline management to keep dense mats from crowding native vegetation. Walleye are documented at Clearwater Lake, one of 6 fish species on record for the lake. 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.