Sarah Lake

Sarah Lake earns a D — measurements through 2020 show persistent nutrient pressure that limits clarity through the summer. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. A maximum depth of just 10 ft means sediment-bound phosphorus releases back into the water column whenever wind stirs the bottom — a classic shallow-lake dynamic. At 1,209 acres, Sarah Lake is one of the larger lakes in Murray County, with 8.1 miles of shoreline supporting multiple distinct use patterns. Sarah Lake ranks 1 of 2 in Murray County — solidly in the upper half of the local distribution.

Zebra mussel presence at Sarah Lake means the lake's clarity numbers carry an asterisk — filtered water is not the same as nutrient-poor water. Walleye are documented at Sarah Lake, one of 10 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a long ice-out record — 29 observations on file, with a median ice-out around Mar 30. The grade is based on limited monitoring — fewer than three independent measurement years contribute, so future updates may shift the letter.