Grey Cloud Slough Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric Grey Cloud Slough Lake fails the cutoffs — a TSI of 60 and persistent algal pressure put it in the bottom tier. 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. 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. Grey Cloud Slough Lake ranks 31 of 31 in Washington County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Grey Cloud Slough Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. The state fisheries records do not list documented species for Grey Cloud Slough Lake, which usually reflects a lack of formal fisheries survey work rather than an empty lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA 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.