Sand Point Lake

On the scoring rubric Sand Point Lake grades a D: clarity at 6.6 ft and phosphorus readings still being added keep it in the lower bracket for St. Louis County. The three sub-grades — clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a — track close together, so no single parameter is dragging the average.

At a TSI of 50, Sand Point Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. Sand Point Lake is unusually deep for Minnesota at 184 ft, which buffers the lake against summer warming and helps the deep water stay oxygenated. With 8,527 acres of surface and 148.0 miles of shoreline, Sand Point Lake is a large water by Minnesota standards — recreational pressure is spread across a long shoreline. Within the 187 graded lakes of St. Louis County, Sand Point Lake sits at rank 150, near the bottom of the county list.

Sand Point Lake is on the Minnesota infested-waters list for zebra mussels — boaters should follow clean-drain-dry protocols when moving gear to or from the lake. Walleye are documented at Sand Point Lake, one of 21 fish species on record for the lake. No formal public access is documented at Sand Point Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. The lake has a partial ice record — 5 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 19. 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.