Kentucky reservoir · state assessment record
Guist Creek Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Kentucky to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 341
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
- Hypereutrophic
- Reported trophic class
This waterbody in one line
Guist Creek Lake, a reservoir in Kentucky, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits in the upper quartile by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (2 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as fully supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P88
- Assessed size nationally
- P10
- 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.
Guist Creek Lake against the ATTAINS 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: in-state cause rank
Inside Kentucky, cause-list rank is the local separator: Guist Creek Lake is 8 of 108 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.
Not one verdict, several
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.
Guist Creek Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Guist Creek Lake. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Large assessed unit
At 341 acres, Guist Creek Lake clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (4,860 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
Longer than most cause lists
2 listed causes puts this unit above 80% of assessed lake-type records by list length. Treat that as a coding-and-sampling signal: states that split pollutants finely mint longer lists without proving worse water.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Kentucky carries 141 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Guist Creek 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting |
| Secondary Contact Recreation Water | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
| Warm Water Aquatic Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation Water | Recreation | Not Assessed |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this reservoir, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nutrient/Eutrophication Biological Indicators | Warm Water Aquatic Habitat | 2004 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Dissolved Oxygen | Warm Water Aquatic Habitat | 2024 | TMDL priority: Low |
Reading the record
Where Guist Creek Lake sits among peers
7 of 12 Kentucky lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
Kentucky ruled definitively on 4 designated uses at Guist Creek Lake and found 1 of 4 not supported. The dataset shows 12 Kentucky lakes judged to that same depth.
Kentucky's assessed lakes are most often judged on 2 uses; this one was judged on 4.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 21 | 16 | 13 | 5 | 2 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 26 | 15 | 7 (this record) | 4 |
| None supported | 14 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Guist Creek Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Guist Creek Lake is one of 141 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Kentucky, and one of 108 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 341 assessed acres it ranks 4,861st 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 4,860 lakes with a larger one.
Reported trophic class
Hypereutrophic is the trophic class the filing agency reported to EPA ATTAINS for this assessment unit. It describes nutrient enrichment, not whether the water is safe, and it is not a PlainLakes inference. What the trophic scale measures.
In context
Where Guist Creek 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
341 Top 12% larger than 88% 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
2 Longer than most more listed causes than 80% 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 Guist Creek Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Kentucky context
ATTAINS carries 141 lake-type waterbodies in Kentucky, 72 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 57 fully supporting. Among the 108 indexed units there, Guist Creek Lake ranks 8th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 26th by assessed size among the 108 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (72 statewide) . Its listed causes include Nutrient/Eutrophication Biological Indicators; and Dissolved Oxygen, which also appear among Kentucky's most-filed impairment causes (led by Nutrient/Eutrophication Biological Indicators).
| Other large assessed lakes in Kentucky | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Cumberland Not Supporting | 50,611 |
| Kentucky Lake Not Supporting | 48,725 |
| Lake Barkley Not Supporting | 39,298 |
| Barren River Lake Not Supporting | 9,461 |
| Green River Lake Fully Supporting | 8,438 |
| Cave Run Lake Not Supporting | 8,097 |
Peers near Guist Creek Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (341 acres here).
- Singletary Pond · 341 acres · MA
- Stinson Lake · 341 acres · NH
- Koosharem Reservoir · 341 acres · UT
- Blaisdell Lake · 341 acres · WI
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (2 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 12th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 31st St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 49th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 57th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
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 KY-871. 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.