Boone Lake is a reservoir

Reservoir

A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

 in Sullivan and Washington counties in northeastern Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, formed by the impoundment of the South Fork Holston River behind Boone Dam

Boone Dam

Boone Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the South Fork Holston River on the border between Sullivan County and Washington County in the U.S. state of Tennessee...

.

The dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 and reservoir are maintained and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority

Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...

 (TVA). The lake has a surface area of about 4400 acres (17.8 km²) and a flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

-storage capacity of 75829 acre.ft. Water levels in the reservoir fluctuate over a range of about 20 feet (6.1 m) over the course of a year.

Recreational facilities on the lake include a swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

 area and a boat ramp. Water skiing

Water skiing

thumb|right|A slalom skier making a turn on a slalom waterski.Waterskiing is a sport where an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation on a body of water, skimming the surface.-History:...

 and fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 are popular activities on the lake. Fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 species in the lake of interest to sport fishermen include black bass

Black bass

Micropterus , is a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. The type species is M. dolomieu, the smallmouth bass...

, largemouth bass

Largemouth bass

The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...

, smallmouth bass

Smallmouth bass

The smallmouth bass is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of the order Perciformes. It is the type species of its genus...

, and striped bass

Striped bass

The striped bass is the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and the state saltwater fish of New York, Virginia, and New Hampshire...

. There are precautionary fish consumption advisories for catfish

Catfish

Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

 and carp

Carp

Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...

 due to PCB

Polychlorinated biphenyl

Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...

 and chlordane

Chlordane

Chlordane, or chlordan, is an organochlorine compound that was used as a pesticide. This white solid was sold in the U.S. until 1983 as an insecticide for crops like corn and citrus and on lawns and domestic gardens.-Production and uses:...

 concentrations. Children and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...

are advised not to consume these two species, and other persons are advised to limit their consumption to one meal per month.

External links

• Boone Reservoir information, Tennessee Valley Authority