Mona Lake

Welcome to Mona Lake, one of west Michigan's hot spots! This lake ties into Lake Michigan via a small channel where the first while settlers appeared here in the mid 1850's and took it from the indians. About 1880, the president of the Chicago and West Michigan Railroad built a depot at the east end of the lake and gave it the name of his daughter, Mona. In no time at all, employees and residents started calling the lake, "Mona Lake" and has been called that ever since.

Mona Lake's Boating and Real Estate

Mona lake is an all sports lake with rules, the most important are that boats shall be operated at a slow, no wake speed through the channel extending from the Lake Harbor bridge to Lake Michigan and no operator of any motorboat shall operate his craft in the area from the northeastern abutment of the Lake Harbor Road bridge due east 100 feet, thence northeastward at a distance of 100 feet from and parallel to the north shore of Mona lake for a distance of 1,025 feet.

GVSU states in their State of the Lake that Little Black Creek flows through the commercial and residential districts of Muskegon Heights and discharges into Mona Lake and according to the MDEQ biological and chemical assessment, Little Black Creek has been contaminated with heavy metals and organic chemicals and sediment is contaminated which all runs into Mona Lake. See
http://gvsu.edu/forms//education/state_lake_2003.pdf for more information on Mona Lake Contamination

Mona Lake's channel to the Big Lake (Lake Michigan) is very shallow and as of right now, 2008, the water levels are so low that boats can not get out to the big lake. There is talk about a dispute between residents - some want it dredged and others do not. Without access to the big lake, property values could be impacted and this issue needs to be resolved.

To learn more about Mona Lake, visit our City's Main page.