Bone Lake Northeast Wetland Restoration

The Bone and Moody Lake drainage areas are the headwaters of the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District (CLFLWD) northern flow network, and as such, their water quality sets the stage for downstream waters, particularly the impaired waters of School Lake, Little Comfort Lake, Comfort Lake, the Sunrise River, and ultimately Lake St. Croix. This project proposes to remove accumulated phosphorus-rich sediment from the northern portion of a wetland directly adjacent to Bone Lake that had a history of receiving direct livestock manure runoff from the dairy farm barnyard located on the same northern part of the wetland. This project is estimated to reduce watershed phosphorus loads to Bone Lake by 15 lb/yr (or 30% of the remaining 50 lb/yr reduction needed for Bone Lake to achieve the District long-term goal of 30 ug/L).

The Bone Lake 10-year growing season average phosphorus concentration has been consistently trending towards the North Central Hardwood Forest ecoregion standard of 40 ?g/L since a high of 60 ?g/L at the time of the 2010 Six Lakes Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report, with the most recent 10-year average of 35 ?g/L. Modest phosphorus reductions to Bone Lake are needed to maintain its recent achievement of state water quality standards and remove Bone Lake from the impaired waters list, making this a statewide priority lake. In addition, this project complements the reduction benefits achieved by other water quality improvement projects for Bone Lake funded by two other CWF grants.