Powers Lake

Powers Lake earns an A — every scored parameter (clarity and phosphorus) rates among the best monitored waters in Kenosha County. clarity and phosphorus rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Mesotrophic conditions dominate at Powers Lake: enough nutrients for a healthy fishery, not so much that algal blooms become a chronic problem. The lake bottoms out at 33 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 451 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. Among the 13 graded lakes in Kenosha County, Powers Lake ranks 2 — in the top quartile locally.

Zebra mussel presence at Powers Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Powers Lake, one of 5 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.