Indiana lake · state assessment record
Fish Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Indiana to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2005 reporting cycle.
- 100
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Fish Lake, a lake in Indiana, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2005). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Indiana assesses human health and wildlife as supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P70
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- 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.
Where Fish Lake stands in 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: assessed size
The number that most separates Fish Lake nationally is assessed size: 100 acres, larger than 70% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Mixed use determinations
This record splits: Not Supporting on aquatic life, Fully Supporting on fish consumption, recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Fish Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Fish 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 Fish Lake is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Typical cause-list length
1 listed cause is a middle-tercile list length among assessed lake-type units. Look to IR category and use outcomes for the distinctive reading.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Indiana carries 1,588 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Fish 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. Indiana filed its own confidence on the one definitive verdict it rated: Good. That rating is the filer's, in EPA's own field, and EPA publishes no definition of the four words it offers.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Full Body Contact | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
| Human Health and Wildlife | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Warm Water Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biological Integrity | Warm Water Aquatic Life | 2002 | TMDL priority: Medium |
Probable sources
Indiana listed the source of the impairment as unknown. That is the state's own filed value, not a gap in this record: the cause has been identified, the origin has not.
Reading the record
Where Fish Lake sits among peers
12 of 16 Indiana lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
Indiana ruled definitively on 3 designated uses at Fish Lake and found 1 of 3 not supported. The dataset shows 16 Indiana lakes judged to that same depth.
Indiana's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use; this one was judged on 3.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 79 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 38 | 12 (this record) | 5 | 0 |
| None supported | 72 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Fish Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Fish Lake is one of 1,588 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Indiana, and one of 162 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 100 assessed acres it ranks 11,704th 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 11,703 lakes with a larger one.
Why no water-level record
Fish 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 Fish 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
100 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
1 Longer than most more listed causes than 49% 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 Fish Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Indiana context
ATTAINS carries 1,588 lake-type waterbodies in Indiana, 145 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 96 fully supporting. Among the 162 indexed units there, Fish Lake ranks 82nd by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 79th by assessed size among the 156 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (145 statewide) . Its listed causes include Biological Integrity, which also appears among Indiana's most-filed impairment causes (led by PCBs in Fish Tissue).
| Other large assessed lakes in Indiana | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Michigan (Not Indexed) (Salmonid) (Osrw) Not Supporting | 154,176 |
| Patoka Reservoir (Pws) Fully Supporting | 8,880 |
| Monroe Reservoir (Lower) (Pws) Not Supporting | 6,863 |
| Brookville Reservoir Not Supporting | 5,260 |
| Monroe Reservoir (Upper) (Pws) Not Supporting | 3,887 |
| Wawasee, Lake Not Supporting | 3,410 |
Peers near Fish Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (100 acres here).
- Airport Lake · 100 acres · OK
- American Horse Lake · 100 acres · OK
- Androscoggin River - D. C. Power Dam · 100 acres · NH
- Beeds Lake · 100 acres · IA
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (1 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Aaron · 1 causes · MN
- Aaron River Reservoir · 1 causes · MA
- Abbotts Creek (including Lexington-Thomasville Water Supply Reservoir at normal reservoir elevation, Tom-A-Lex Lake) · 1 causes · NC
- Abeniki Lake · 1 causes · NH
What to do with this record
- Assessment verdicts are cycle-based, not real-time. For fish-consumption decisions, your state advisory program is the binding source. 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 INJ01P1133_00. 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.