Miner'S Pit West Lake

On the LakeGrade rubric, Miner'S Pit West Lake pulls an A: clarity at 23.1 ft and 4 µg/L of phosphorus put it in the top bracket for Minnesota. 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 Miner'S Pit West Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. Miner'S Pit West Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 140 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. At 141 acres, Miner'S Pit West Lake fits the Minnesota median for monitored lakes, with 3.9 miles of shoreline. Within St. Louis County's 215 graded waters, Miner'S Pit West Lake sits at rank 24, near the top of the local distribution.

Miner'S Pit West Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2025, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Bass fishing is part of the appeal: the species list runs to 9, anchored by largemouth and/or smallmouth bass. No formal public access is documented at Miner'S Pit West Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. 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.