Lake Superior Basin
Lake Superior Shoreline, Minnesota. Photo: USDA Forest Service
Lake Superior Basin Location
The Minnesota part of the Lake Superior Basin encompasses portions of Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Lake, Pine and St. Louis Counties, covering approximately 6,200 square miles. Major watersheds in the basin include the Cloquet, Nemadji and St. Louis River systems, as well as the North Shore tributaries to Lake Superior.
The Lake Superior Basin is Minnesota’s only basin that is on a Great Lake coastline. As such, the basin is in a unique position to take advantage of international, national, and multi-state efforts to manage and protect the Great Lakes.
Learn more about the basin and the MPCA's plans for protecting it by reading the Lake Superior Basin plan document below.
Lake Superior Basin Plan (wq-b2-01.pdf)
One of the principal instruments to manage Lake Superior and the Great Lakes is the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Information is available through the link below.
What is Basin Management?
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is implementing basin management to better identify water quality problems and or successes, create alliances with communities to establish shared goals and priorities, and develop integrated solution strategies for point and nonpoint sources of pollution. The state has been portioned into ten major river basins - the Lake Superior Basin being one of those ten. Four key principles to basin management are to:
- Focus on water resource priorities
- Emphasize environmental outcomes
- Focus on customer/public involvement
- Integrate point/nonpoint source pollution reduction strategies
