Powers Lake

Powers Lake earns an A — water clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate among the best monitored waters in Kenosha County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all 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. Powers Lake ranks 10 of 13 in Kenosha County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

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. A documented public access point at Powers Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.