Water quality advisories from the State of Tennessee make it clear: there are lakes, rivers and creeks where you should not swim or fish because of potentially dangerous pollutants and bacteria.
►RELATED: What's in the water of East Tennessee?
Here are the specific advisories for Melton Hill Reservoir.
Melton Hill Reservoir (Knox, Anderson)
Polluted with: PCBs
Catfish should not be eaten.
Here are the specific advisories--broken down by body of water--for other popular lakes in East Tennessee, as of March 2019. You can see the latest list on the Department of Environment and Conservation's website here.
Details on the pollutants can be found here.