Illinois lake · state assessment record
Honey
Assessment decisions reported by Illinois to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2018 reporting cycle.
- 66
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
- Eutrophic
- Reported trophic class
This waterbody in one line
Honey, a lake in Illinois, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2018). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (2 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as fully supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P61
- Assessed size nationally
- P10
- Shorter cause list
- Fully 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 Honey 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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 2 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 80% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
A split ruling across uses
This record splits: Not Supporting on recreation, Fully Supporting on aquatic life. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Honey: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Honey. The remaining work is implementation and tracking, read the cleanup-standing and cause rows for what the state already committed to address.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Honey is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Mid-pack assessed size
66 acres lands in the middle tercile of units with an area filed. Acreage is not what distinguishes this record from its peers.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Illinois carries 783 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Honey 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. Monitoring behind at least one of these designated-use verdicts ran through 2015, as Illinois filed it. Illinois filed its own confidence on the 3 definitive verdicts 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetic Quality | Other | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Primary Contact | Recreation | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phosphorus, Total | Aesthetic Quality | 2004 | TMDL approved |
| Fecal Coliform | Primary Contact | 2006 | TMDL approved |
Reading the record
Honey: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Illinois filed this assessment unit as Category 4A: impaired, with a pollutant-budget TMDL already completed under 303(d). The listing remains an impairment finding; the plan is on file rather than still awaiting write-up.
Scale and rank
Honey is one of 783 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Illinois, and one of 439 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 66 assessed acres it ranks 15,101st 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 15,100 lakes with a larger one.
Awaiting a filing
The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.
Reported trophic class
Eutrophic 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 Honey 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
66 Top 39% larger than 61% 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 Honey. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Illinois context
ATTAINS carries 783 lake-type waterbodies in Illinois, 434 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 63 fully supporting. Among the 439 indexed units there, Honey ranks 251st by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 179th by assessed size among the 388 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (434 statewide) . Its listed causes include Phosphorus, Total, which also appears among Illinois's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total). It also lists Fecal Coliform, outside that top-five list.
| Other large assessed lakes in Illinois | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Michigan Nearshore Not Supporting | 125,440 |
| Carlyle Not Supporting | 24,580 |
| Rend Not Supporting | 18,900 |
| Shelbyville Not Supporting | 11,000 |
| Crab Orchard Not Supporting | 6,965 |
| Clinton Not Supporting | 4,895 |
Peers near Honey's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (66 acres here).
- Atchison Co. SFL · 66 acres · KS
- Cooley Lake · 66 acres · MA
- Cub Creek Reservoir · 66 acres · TN
- Duck Lake (Valentine NWR) · 66 acres · NE
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (2 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Aaron Mercer Reservoir · 2 causes · OR
- Abbotts Mill Pond · 2 causes · DE
- Adkins Pond · 2 causes · MD
- Adobe Creek Reservoir. · 2 causes · CO
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 IL_RTZU. 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.