Sand Lake

Sand Lake earns a C — middle-of-the-pack water quality, with one or two parameters dragging the average down from a stronger grade. Clarity is the limiting factor — phosphorus is reasonable but suspended particles or algal cells keep water transparency below Minnesota norms.

At a TSI of 53, Sand Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. A maximum depth of just 11 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. The lake's 486 acres and 8.1 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Within Lake County's 159 graded lakes, Sand Lake ranks 98 — below the local median, though not at the bottom.

Sand Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2025, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Sand Lake, one of 9 fish species on record for the 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.