Oregon reservoir · state assessment record
Aaron Mercer Reservoir
Assessment decisions reported by Oregon to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2012 reporting cycle.
- 52
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Aaron Mercer Reservoir, a reservoir in Oregon, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2012). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (2 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P56
- Assessed size nationally
- P10
- Shorter cause list
- Not 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.
Reading Aaron Mercer Reservoir's filed record
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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 2 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 80% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Every filed use falls short
On the uses this filer ruled on, aquatic life, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Aaron Mercer Reservoir: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Aaron Mercer Reservoir. The remaining work is implementation and tracking, read the cleanup-standing and cause rows for what the state already committed to address.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Aaron Mercer Reservoir is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Small within Oregon
State size rank 139 of 167 puts Aaron Mercer Reservoir toward the small end of Oregon's indexed lake-type units with an area.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Oregon carries 1,431 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Aaron Mercer Reservoir 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.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fish and Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Aesthetic Quality | Other | Not Assessed |
| Boating | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
| Hydropower | Other | Not Assessed |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Irrigation | Other | Not Assessed |
| Livestock Watering | Other | Not Assessed |
| Private Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Public Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Water Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Wildlife and Hunting | Other | Not Assessed |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this reservoir, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flow Regime Modification | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2002 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Dissolved Oxygen | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | TMDL approved |
Reading the record
Aaron Mercer Reservoir: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Oregon 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
Aaron Mercer Reservoir is one of 1,431 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Oregon, and one of 167 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 52 assessed acres it ranks 17,128th 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 17,127 lakes with a larger one.
Still unfiled
The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict and a definitive recreation verdict for this record; those fields populate when it reports them in a future Integrated Report cycle.
In context
Where Aaron Mercer Reservoir 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
52 Top 44% larger than 56% 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 Aaron Mercer Reservoir. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Oregon context
ATTAINS carries 1,431 lake-type waterbodies in Oregon, 165 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 14 fully supporting. Among the 167 indexed units there, Aaron Mercer Reservoir ranks 88th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 139th by assessed size among the 167 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (165 statewide) . Its listed causes include Dissolved Oxygen, which also appears among Oregon's most-filed impairment causes (led by Temperature). It also lists Flow Regime Modification, outside that top-five list.
| Other large assessed lakes in Oregon | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Goose Lake Not reported | 93,152 |
| Malheur Slough Not Supporting | 73,544 |
| Upper Klamath Lake Not Supporting | 62,130 |
| Columbia River Not Supporting | 55,630 |
| Lake Abert Not Assessed | 44,751 |
| Summer Lake Not reported | 31,606 |
Peers near Aaron Mercer Reservoir's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (52 acres here).
- Bonner Lake · 52 acres · NY
- Johnson · 52 acres · MN
- Pooles · 52 acres · MN
- Zanders · 52 acres · MN
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
- Assessment verdicts are cycle-based, not real-time. For fish-consumption decisions, your state advisory program is the binding source. 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 OR_LK_1709000701_02_100778. 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.