Michigan lake · state assessment record
White Lake (2,576 acres)
Vicinity of Montague and Whitehall. Muskegon Co. Assessment decisions reported by Michigan to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.
- 2,576
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
- Eutrophic
- Reported trophic class
This waterbody in one line
White Lake, a lake in Michigan, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2026). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% 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 fully supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P97
- 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.
White 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: assessed size
The number that most separates White Lake nationally is assessed size: 2,576 acres, larger than 97% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Not one verdict, several
This record splits: Not Supporting on fish consumption, Fully Supporting on aquatic life. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
White Lake: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on White Lake. The remaining work is implementation and tracking, read the cleanup-standing and cause rows for what the state already committed to address.
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.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for White Lake is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Michigan carries 4,307 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to White 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. Michigan filed 2024 as the year this waterbody was last monitored. For the definitive verdicts on this record, Michigan filed the assessment basis as Monitored Data. Those are EPA's own words, not PlainLakes' summary of them. Michigan filed its own confidence on the 5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Navigation | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Other Indigenous Aquatic Life and Wildlife | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Cold Water Fishery | Aquatic-life or related | Not Assessed |
| Partial Body Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Total Body Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Warm Water Fishery | Aquatic-life or related | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCBs in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 1998 | TMDL approved |
| Mercury in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2008 | TMDL approved |
Probable sources named by the state
Each source below is listed under the cause the state filed it against, and carries the word the state filed with it — confirmed, or suspected.
- PCBs in Fish Tissue
- Atmospheric Deposition - Toxics (confirmed)
- Mercury in Fish Tissue
- Atmospheric Deposition - Toxics (confirmed)
Reading the record
White Lake: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Michigan 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
White Lake is one of 4,307 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Michigan, and one of 776 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 2,576 assessed acres it ranks 1,138th 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 1,137 lakes with a larger one.
Awaiting a filing
The state has not yet filed a definitive recreation 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.
Why no water-level record
White 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 White 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
2,576 Top 3% larger than 97% 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 White Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Michigan context
ATTAINS carries 4,307 lake-type waterbodies in Michigan, 807 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 3,457 fully supporting. Among the 776 indexed units there, White Lake ranks 108th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 41st by assessed size among the 493 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (807 statewide) . Its listed causes include PCBs in Fish Tissue and Mercury in Fish Tissue, which also appear among Michigan's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury in Fish Tissue).
| Other large assessed lakes in Michigan | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Huron (Michigan Jurisdiction) Not Supporting | 5,815,360 |
| Lake Michigan South of Frankfort (Michigan Jurisdiction) Not Supporting | 5,665,920 |
| St. Marys River Not Supporting | 129,983 |
| Lake St. Clair (Michigan Jurisdiction) Not Supporting | 103,616 |
| Lake Erie (Michigan Jurisdiction) Not Supporting | 71,680 |
| Houghton Lake Not Supporting | 20,066 |
Peers near White Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (2,576 acres here).
- Edward · 2,578 acres · MN
- Wheeler Lake · 2,574 acres · AL
- Lake Bob Sandlin · 2,572 acres · TX
- Johns Lake · 2,580 acres · FL
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
- 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 MI040601010904-01. 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.