Indiana Lakes Information

Lakes are vital natural resources in Indiana. Indiana has 952 lakes listed in the Indiana Lakes Guide, which includes natural lakes as well as reservoirs. Waterfronts all over the state are populated with residents who live, swim, and fish there. Many lakes are major recreation centers. Lakes are also the location of many state parks, state recreation areas, youth camps, educational facilities, and fish hatcheries. Although all the lakes in the state have a general fish advisory for mercury, 47 lakes have a special listing. Mercury contamination affects these lakes and our health. What follows are the details that explain how mercury affects our lakes and our health.

See "Mercury in our Lakes" for details on the lakes.

Table 2:

Total Lake Acres in Indiana	Under Advisory	Total River Miles in Indiana	Under Advisory	Number of Species Covered
142,871	All	35,673	All	211

To emphasize that the mercury in these lakes is coming from the air and rain, this report examines certain water bodies based on three conditions. First, five natural lakes were selected based on their position as upstream headwaters with few tributaries. With these kinds of lakes, there is a significantly reduced chance that their mercury contamination is caused by direct discharge from industry. Secondly, two human-made lakes (reservoirs) were chosen based on their being built within the last few decades. The relative young age of these reservoirs, already contaminated with mercury, also points to air deposition as the primary source of their contamination. The short time it has taken these reservoirs to become contaminated is an indication of the severity of the air deposition problem.

Finally, because mercury can come from direct discharge from industry, discharge lists were examined. There are no National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for mercury discharge in any of the streams or ditches that feed into any of the lakes in this report.

Table 3:

Lake	Location	Area (acres)	Elevation (feet)	# of fish species in FCA	Level of Warning
Lake James	Stueben Co.	1034	950	3	2-3
Olin Lake	LaGrange Co.	103	900	3	2-5
Oliver Lake	LaGrange Co.	394	900	2	2-3
Lake Waubee	Kosciusko Co.	127	840	6	2-3
LakeWawasee	Kosciusko Co.	3410	860	2	2-3

Table 4:

Reservoir	Location	Date of construction	Area (acres)	Elevation (feet)	# of fish species in FCA	Level of Warning
Eagle Creek	Marion Co.	1978	1350	790	2	2-3
Patoka Lake	Orange & Dubois Co.	1967	8880	536	5	2-3

NOTE: The levels of warning are explained in more detail in "How Mercury Affects Hoosiers", Table 6.

"The source of mercury to these waters (26 lakes in Russia), which are remote from known pollution sources, is believed to be atmospheric deposition."⁴

"Air deposition accounts for up to 90% of the mercury that enters Lake Superior."⁵

It must be noted that mercury levels in fish tend to be higher when high amounts of certain biota are in the water. Certain bacteria, in particular, can transform inorganic mercury into methylmercury. Methylmercury is the form of mercury that is more readily absorbed and retained in organisms. Methylmercury also poses the greatest potential to bioaccumulate and harm wildlife, mammals, and humans that eat contaminated fish. This will be explained in more detail later in this report.

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