Unchecked development, lax regulation push Minnesota lakeshores to the edge
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Minnesotans are loving their lakes to death.
A statewide culture that long embraced rustic cabins by rugged lakeshores now values large homes with manicured lawns, patios, rock riprap and trees cleared to provide a better view of the water.
That generational change is easy to spot these days standing on the shoreline of popular destinations such as Gull Lake near Brainerd. Once-lush and woodsy shorelines have disappeared over decades. Lake cabins have been torn down and replaced with expansive homes. It’s a similar view across much of Minnesota.
It’s a slow-motion environmental crisis.
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Nearly half the state’s natural shorelines are gone, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. They continue to vanish by 1 to 2 percent per decade. It's a loss rate the DNR along with local governments and nonprofits called “alarming” last year in a report that concluded “many of Minnesota’s lakes are in trouble.”
Water running off mowed lawns and hard surfaces contributes to pollution in lakes. One-quarter of the state’s lakes have high levels of phosphorus, which feeds algae growth that turns the water a green and slimy mess. A single pound of phosphorus in a lake can produce 500 pounds of algae.
How did a state so grounded in lake culture and rule-making get to this point? Observers cite a decadeslong drip of inadequate regulation and lax enforcement by local boards and state authorities that allowed a suburban-style vision of lake life to take root, and it’s damaging lakes.
“The challenge is real,” said Randall Doneen, a water resources section manager with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
“People have a certain aesthetic preference. And what we're seeing, really, is that it is common for people to want more of a suburban landscaping,” Doneen said. “It's no longer just the cabin up at the lake, with your path down to your dock.”
It is possible to check and repair the damage. On some Minnesota lakes, property owners and local officials have worked together to restore and protect shorelines without crippling growth.
Getting there statewide, though, means shifting the culture and convincing people their vision of beauty is killing the thing they love.
There’s a lot at stake beyond the health of the lakes. Pollution affects anyone who owns or visits a lake home or cabin, spends time fishing, swimming or boating, enjoys seeing loons and other wildlife, or dreams of spending their retirement years on a lake.
“We are a land of 10,000 lakes,” said Paul Radomski, a longtime lake ecologist with the DNR. “We don't want to be a land of 10,000 impaired lakes.”
‘People wanting to build bigger’
Minnesota’s treasured lakes have been drawing visitors and residents since the 1800s. A 1926 travel brochure advertised the state as “the nation’s summer playground,” according to the Minnesota Historical Society.
In recent decades, though, the nature of lake living changed. As demand for waterfront property surged and real estate prices soared, many resorts were subdivided into lots and sold. People bought modest cabins, demolished them and built showcase homes.
Tony and Bonnie Coffey bought their first lake cabin in Crow Wing County in 1994, and later settled on the Whitefish Chain of Lakes, where Tony is president of the property owners association. During that time, they’ve witnessed a boom in growth in the Brainerd Lakes Area.
“It makes it very livable, all the things we have in terms of doctors and retail and restaurants,” said Tony Coffey, who serves as president of the Whitefish Area Property Owners Association. “But what that’s done is it’s created an influx of people.”
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated that growth. With more people able to work remotely, many lake property owners decided to turn seasonal cabins into year-round homes.
“What we're seeing is people who might have thought that to maybe build their dream home would be 10 years from now, now I think it’s today,” said Chris Pence, environmental services manager for Crow Wing County. “Because now, I don't have to be down in Minneapolis to work all the time. I can work from my cabin.”
Many improved their lake property to make it less like a seasonal cabin and more like their year-round home by adding an extra bedroom, a patio or a bigger garage.
“We're seeing people wanting to build bigger,” said Nick Neuman, senior environmental specialist for Stearns County, which has nearly 300 lakes. That could mean expanding a cabin, he said, “or it might just be wanting to build a larger home on lots that maybe aren't designed for it.”
Those larger homes often have more roofs, driveways, patios and other hard surfaces that increase polluted runoff into the lake. Neuman said the increase of impervious surfaces is “probably the biggest issue” facing Minnesota’s lake country.
“That really stems from just more development, larger structures and more intensive use of the properties that already exist,” he said.
A tale of two lake properties
The whir of the outboard motor barely drowned out the sound of traffic on Highway 371 during a recent summer day in Baxter as DNR ecologists Paul Radomski and Josh Knopik stood in an aluminum boat, scanning the shoreline of Perch Lake.
Knopik paused the boat in front of a modest home. Once likely a seasonal cabin, it’s now a full-time residence.
The sandy shoreline stretches unbroken the length of a basketball court and is lined with large stones. No shrubs or native plants are in sight, just neatly mowed, bright green grass.
“There are two tall trees,” Knopik said. “Otherwise, it's like a suburban house, just plopped next to a lake.”
Water runs off the house’s roof and driveway and across the lawn without trees or plants to slow and absorb it, Radomski said. It carries soil, organic matter and nutrients like phosphorus straight into the lake.
After a heavy rain, seven to nine times more phosphorus will run off this mowed lawn into the lake than off undeveloped lakeshore, he said.
“That has consequences on water quality,” Radomski said.
The DNR began measuring the condition of the state’s shorelines with a scientific survey in 2015. So far, it’s completed 900 surveys on more than 836 lakes across Minnesota.
A pristine lakeshore with no development would score a 100. The lowest-scoring lake so far is heavily developed Forest Lake in the northeast Twin Cities metro, which earned a 37.
The survey data has allowed the DNR to accurately assess what’s happening with Minnesota lakes and calculate the loss of natural shorelines, Radomski said.
“Quantifying it opens eyes,” he said. “People say, ‘Oh, what are we doing? What are we doing about that?’”
Mapping the data shows regional differences. Lakes in central Minnesota tend to be more populated and developed. In contrast, many northern lakes still have wooded, natural shorelines that help protect water quality and provide wildlife habitat.
Farther down the shore of Perch Lake, Knopik paused the boat in front of a much different property. The house is almost hidden, set back about 100 feet from shore. The owners have kept most of the trees and a thick buffer of cattails along the shore.
The residents still have a mowed lawn, but the vegetation along the water’s edge should absorb any runoff, Knopik said. It’s “a compromise of sorts,” he said.
Finding a way to both enjoy the lake and preserve it is the message the DNR is advocating to lake property owners, Radomski said.
“How do you find that balance between having that shoreline vegetation so that it protects water quality and provides the habitat, but you still get to have a great experience on the water?” he said.
‘A problem that didn’t have to exist’
The disappearance of natural shorelines has other profound effects.
A sandy beach or rock riprap supplies little food or shelter for wildlife. But vegetation along the shoreline is critical for nesting loons. Aquatic plants provide cover for fish, and fallen trees offer a resting spot for turtles and frogs.
Natural shorelines also help prevent erosion, a common problem on many Minnesota lakes — especially as climate change causes heavier rainfalls and more frequent flooding.
Native plants’ roots can grow as long as 15 feet, much longer than the Kentucky bluegrass found in most Minnesota lawns. Those deeper roots help hold the soil in place.
Ironically, changes residents make to “improve” their lake property often cause more problems.
Riprap is often a solution property owners and landscape contractors use to fix erosion problems along lakeshore. But the rocks actually can increase the speed and temperature of water running into the lake, and provide no habitat for pollinators or other wildlife.
A mowed lawn edged with rock might look tidy, but it can attract unwelcome guests. Knopik points to a Perch Lake shoreline strung with an unsightly plastic fence.
“They’ve probably struggled with geese going on their lawn and defecating and eating and doing what they do,” he said. “That’s annoying.”
In contrast, deep-rooted native plants and trees help stabilize the shoreline, prevent erosion and discourage geese, Knopik said.
“The riprap is like a Band-Aid or a solution to a problem that didn’t have to exist,” he said.
There’s an economic impact, too. Studies have linked lakes with good water quality to higher property values.
Regulation ‘not working’
Minnesota has regulated development around lakes for more than 50 years, but the current shoreline rules were last updated in 1989 and many scientists consider them outdated and inadequate.
“Clearly, they're not working,” Radomski said. “We're still losing habitat.”
The Legislature directed the DNR to update the state’s shoreland rules in 2007, and Minnesota regulators spent years devising more protective standards. But then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty rejected them, saying they undermined local control and property rights.
This year, state lawmakers reaffirmed that the DNR still has the authority to update the shoreland rules. But it’s unclear whether there’s political will for tighter statewide regulations.
In Minnesota, it’s up to local governments — cities and counties — to enforce shoreland regulations, and their record is mixed. Historically, counties approve many requests for variances to the rules.
“Regulations have not stopped shoreline alterations, lot by lot, year by year, and lake by lake,” stated a report released last year by the Minnesota Natural Shoreline Partnership, a coalition that includes conservation professionals from the DNR, local government agencies and nonprofits.
The report says a “reasonable goal” would be a natural, unmowed buffer of trees and vegetation that stretches for 75 percent of the shoreline and is at least 25 feet deep, far from the norm on many Minnesota lakes.
While state rules prohibit “intensive” clearing of vegetation near the shore, they’re open to interpretation and sometimes difficult to enforce.
“People want to be able to enjoy seeing the lake, and they see the trees and the shrubs as an impediment to their view,” Doneen said. “That's a real challenge, because you want people to be able to enjoy the lake without degrading it so much.”
The DNR occasionally intervenes and challenges a county’s decision to issue a shoreland variance if it violates state or local rules, but those cases are not the norm.
The agency prefers to provide education for local government officials and, if needed, share its concerns about a development proposal, Doneen said.
“If it comes down to it and it’s egregious, and we think that the resources being sacrificed are significant and that there really has been a legal error, we’ll step in if we have to,” he said. “But it is the absolute last thing that we would want to do.”
‘People like to push the envelope’
While there’s been little political will to tighten the state’s shoreland rules, some counties have adopted their own regulations that go beyond the state’s minimum requirements.
Crow Wing County, with close to 500 lakes, allows up to 25 percent of a lake property to be covered with hard surfaces such as roofs, driveways and patios. But anything over 15 percent requires a plan to use rain gardens or other techniques to manage stormwater.
That's the threshold studies have shown could start to affect water quality, Pence said.
About three years ago, Stearns County began requiring property owners to have a minimum amount of natural shoreline before they can get a permit to make any changes near the lake. It’s had a significant impact, Neuman said.
“People like to push the envelope,” he said. “So that's where the regulatory measures really are a safeguard to protect whatever you know is worth protecting.”
State and local governments, watershed districts, nonprofits and lake associations have worked to educate property owners about the importance of keeping shoreline natural. Results are mixed.
Most people make decisions about their lake property based on economics and what others around them are doing, Neuman said.
“We can promote and we can suggest and we can recommend,” he said. “But the vast majority of people — and therefore contractors, because they are trying to meet the wants of their clients — are going to be interested in making it look the way they want it to look.”
Some lake advocates are thinking beyond regulations about how to change societal norms beyond perfectly manicured lawns and boat lifts and docks that resemble a marina, said Joe Shneider, president of the Minnesota Coalition of Lake Associations.
“It doesn’t help our water quality,” Shneider said. “And at the end of the day, it's really all about protecting the quality of the water.”
Funding for this series is provided in part by the Four Cedars Environmental Fund of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.
Correction (Aug. 15, 2025): An earlier version of this story misidentified aerial images of a popular Gull Lake point in a neighboring county, rather than Cass County. The article has been updated.