Florida lake · state assessment record
Bear Lake (102 acres)
Assessment decisions reported by Florida to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle. The cleanup plan below was established by EPA rather than by Florida.
- 102
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Bear Lake, a lake in Florida, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 3 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (3 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P70
- Assessed size nationally
- P5
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- aquatic life
Assessment verdicts are the state agency's decisions as reported to EPA ATTAINS; PlainLakes renders them without modification.
A composite of this record's EPA ATTAINS designated-use verdicts, filed impairment count, and assessment currency, weighted and benchmarked against the national corpus of assessed active waterbodies. This is a water-quality standing, not a human-recreation or property-value judgment, and dimensions with no filed verdict drop out rather than count against the score.
How Bear Lake reads against the filed register
Paragraphs are selected by this unit's percentiles and use matrix: different lakes lead with different dimensions. Figures are ATTAINS / portal register arithmetic, not advice.
The signature stat: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 3 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 90% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, recreation, aquatic life, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Bear Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Bear Lake. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Bear Lake is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Large assessed unit
At 102.3 acres, Bear Lake clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (11,535 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Florida carries 1,475 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Bear Lake without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.
The record
Designated-use assessments
Fully Supporting and Not Supporting are the state's definitive verdicts; other entries mean the use was not conclusively assessed in this cycle.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Fish and Wildlife Propagation - Freshwater | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Recreation | Recreation | Not Supporting |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this lake, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2020 | TMDL established by EPA |
| Chlorophyll-a | Fish and Wildlife Propagation - Freshwater; Recreation | 2022 | TMDL priority: High |
| Phosphorus, Total | Fish and Wildlife Propagation - Freshwater; Recreation | 2022 | TMDL priority: High |
Reading the record
EPA plan standing on Bear Lake
1 cleanup plan EPA established here
EPA, not Florida, established that plan.
Scale and rank
Bear Lake is one of 1,475 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Florida, and one of 973 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 102 assessed acres it ranks 11,536th by assessed size among the 38,628 lakes the dataset carries an area for, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once, behind 11,535 lakes with a larger one.
Why no water-level record
Bear Lake has no daily USGS water-level or reservoir-storage series on this page because NWIS lists a lake monitoring site named for the waterbody, but the site is not active, and PlainLakes ingests only the active inventory, so there is no series to attach. How PlainLakes links gauges.
In context
Where Bear Lake sits nationally
Assessed size among U.S. lakes
Distribution of assessed acreage across ATTAINS lakes filed with an area, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once
102 Top 30% larger than 70% of 38,628 lakes
lakes the dataset carries an area for, counting a state’s repeated filings of one water once, bucketed by value
Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026
Listed causes vs waterbodies carrying a verdict
How many impairment causes U.S. waterbodies with a reported verdict carry
3 Longer than most more listed causes than 90% of 23,610 waterbodies carrying a verdict
named waterbodies carrying a verdict, bucketed by value
Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026
In both charts each bar is a band and taller bars hold more waterbodies; the dashed line and filled bar mark Bear Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Florida context
ATTAINS carries 1,475 lake-type waterbodies in Florida, 636 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 367 fully supporting. Among the 973 indexed units there, Bear Lake ranks 162nd by listed-cause count (3 listed causes) and 453rd by assessed size among the 973 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (636 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury in Fish Tissue; Chlorophyll-a; and Phosphorus, Total, which also appear among Florida's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total).
| Other large assessed lakes in Florida | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Okeechobee Not Supporting | 76,101 |
| Lake George Not Supporting | 43,576 |
| Lake Apopka Not Supporting | 30,909 |
| Lake Kissimmee Not Supporting | 30,671 |
| Lake Istokpoga Not Supporting | 26,673 |
| Lake Tohopekaliga Fully Supporting | 19,006 |
Peers near Bear Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (102 acres here).
- Arbor (Goose) · 102 acres · MN
- Dunham Lake · 102 acres · MI
- Cook · 102 acres · MN
- Bosworth Lake · 102 acres · WA
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (3 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 67th St. Beach · 3 causes · IL
- Abiquiu Reservoir · 3 causes · NM
- Absecon Creek (AC Reserviors) (gage to SB) · 3 causes · NJ
- Absecon Creek (below gage) · 3 causes · NJ
What to do with this record
- The fish-consumption use is assessed as not supporting. Before eating fish from this lake, check your state fish-advisory program for species-specific meal limits. Consumption status guide
- Impairment listings follow the Clean Water Act 303(d) process; a listing is a regulatory finding, not a closure notice. 303(d) explained
PlainLakes renders state assessment decisions and federal gauge observations without modification. It does not issue advisories.
Assessment decisions on this page are rendered directly from state Integrated Report records in EPA's ATTAINS system; gauge figures are daily-value observations from the USGS National Water Information System, no number is typed in by an editor. Overall status, use verdicts, and causes are the state's reported decisions for assessment unit FL179A. Counts and percentiles are computed across all lake-type records PlainLakes ingests from ATTAINS. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-17. Primary sources: EPA ATTAINS and USGS National Water Information System.