If you are looking into creating a diving spot this is a local open pit mine that served the purpose for many years.
Ornogo open pit mine diving Skip down to where it talks about Oronogo Circle Mine (Lead and Zinc mostly)
When I first became acquainted with it in the late 60's it was exceptionally clear. Over the years whatever minerals or poor water conditions that kept it clear changed and the last time I dove it ten or so years ago it maybe had ten foot visibility due to the algae bloom. And it was starting to support a modest fish population. When I first dove it there were no fish even though people had tried to stock it. Nature has a way of rectifying water quality over time.
Unfortunately one or our government agencies with unlimited appetite to spend taxpayer money did this to it, so it is no more.
Divers say goodbye We also had what we as kids called alkaline pits. I have no idea if the description was chemically right or not. The strip pits were old coal strip mining pits filled with water that might be up to 30 feet deep but most were only 10 or 15 or less. Something about the minerals in the water made them stay crystal clear. Might not have been the most healthy thing to swim in but they were a favorite late night place to skinny dip if we could talk some girls into into it or later taking my kids snorkeling when they were young. By the time my kids were old enough to swim in them nature had changed them to a degree where some type of weeds would barely grow around the edges and some moss in the bottoms (that smelled nasty if you moved the bottom around) and you might find mosquito larvae in some moss around the edges and a few turtles occasionally visiting them. Still no fish and pretty clear (maybe 6 meter vis). But by the time my kids were adults those pits are weed filled with green biomass and algae. So over the length of my lifetime natures process transformed them from lifeless (and very clear) BOW's to life filled fishing holes. Now many have been filled in with taxpayer money and made into semi-worthless pasture although over time nature will take care of that too and they will once again become productive.
Point is, if you get clear water, it likely will be a life long process of keeping it that way. Nature will figure out a way of altering it to its own uses and grow something in it without your attention to force it to do otherwise.
