Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake

On the scoring rubric Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake grades a D: clarity at 3.5 ft and phosphorus readings still being added keep it in the lower bracket for Price County. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

At a TSI of 59, Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake reads as eutrophic — nutrient-rich enough that summer algal growth and reduced clarity are expected, not unusual. The lake bottoms out at 17 ft — a moderate depth that supports a warm-water fishery without the year-round cold refuge a deeper basin provides. The lake's 310 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. Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake sits at rank 17 of 27 in Price County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

An invasive species record — Chinese Mystery Snail — has been logged at Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. Walleye are documented at Upper Park Falls Flowage Lake, one of 6 fish species on record for the lake. A documented public access point at Upper Park Falls Flowage 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.