It seems to me that there really aren’t many bodies of water (from small streams up to larger lakes) that don’t have notable pollution problems.

I guess the severity of the problem goes to personal tastes and aversions. I know plenty of people who won’t even drink Louisville tap water because it comes from the river (although it’s almost all I ever drink), and there are others who have no problem with eating multiple meals a week with fish from the Ohio.

Floyds Fork is supposedly the cleanest stream in Jefferson County. I think I’d be willing to eat fish from there, as well as from the Ohio, although maybe not after a “significant rain event” like it says on the warning signs
It seems to me that every body of water locally, even the lakes, will have sewage from tributaries, and from boaters, and waste & pesticide runoff from farms, as well as runoff from parking lots and roads. The only exceptions would be mountain streams.

There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of comprehensive information online about how clean Kentucky’s waters are, but there are various reports and “grade papers” measuring different things from different times.

Another interesting point that I’ve heard made, and which many people who talk about this don’t seem to be aware of, is that fish in markets and restaurants isn’t necessarily cleaner than anything you’d pull out of the river here. (Although it’s not quite the same thing, I heard someone on the radio recently talking about the shrimp farms in Asia that provide shrimp for many major brands around the world…these shrimp farms are pretty much cess pools, and you can probably find these shrimp frozen at your local Kroger.

I find it an interesting topic, and I just wonder about the observations of people who fish and boat more often than I do (which is pretty much everyone on this forum). I’m interested in hearing comments about how clean or dirty the water is in other parts of Kentucky, and where people draw the line.