New Mexico reservoir · state assessment record

Abiquiu Reservoir

Assessment decisions reported by New Mexico to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.

3,258
Assessed acres
Reservoir
Water type
View watchlist

This waterbody in one line

Abiquiu Reservoir, a reservoir in New Mexico, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 3 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2026). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (3 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). New Mexico rules it not supporting for coldwater aquatic life, while other aquatic-life uses are supported.

Not Supporting
overall status
P98
Assessed size nationally
P5
Shorter cause list
Not Supporting
aquatic-life or related

Assessment verdicts are the state agency's decisions as reported to EPA ATTAINS; PlainLakes renders them without modification.

C-
Water Quality Standing
52/100
Abiquiu Reservoir

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.

RecreationA+
Meeting criteria
Swimming, boating, and other primary/secondary contact recreation
Drinking WaterN/A
Not assessed
Suitability as a public drinking-water source
Aquatic LifeF
Not supporting
Support for fish, invertebrates, and other aquatic organisms
Fish ConsumptionN/A
Not assessed
Safety of eating fish caught in this water
Impairment BurdenF
3 causes
Filed pollutant/stressor causes, vs. the national corpus of assessed active units
Assessment CurrencyA+
2026
Reporting cycle this record’s verdicts were last decided in

Reading Abiquiu 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: assessed size

The number that most separates Abiquiu Reservoir nationally is assessed size: 3,258 acres, larger than 98% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.

Not one verdict, several

This record splits: Not Supporting on aquatic life, Fully Supporting on recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.

Longer than most cause lists

3 listed causes puts this unit above 90% of assessed lake-type records by list length. Treat that as a coding-and-sampling signal: states that split pollutants finely mint longer lists without proving worse water.

Abiquiu Reservoir: Category 5, TMDL still owed

Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Abiquiu Reservoir. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.

Overall status: not supporting

The filer's overall status for Abiquiu Reservoir is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, New Mexico carries 176 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Abiquiu Reservoir without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

Reporting cycle
2026
New Mexico Integrated Report
Listing category
Category 5
Uses with verdicts
5
Definitive use assessments
Sources retrieved
2026-08-17
Portal-wide ATTAINS + NWIS pull

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
Coldwater Aquatic Life Aquatic-life or related Not Supporting
Irrigation Storage Other Fully Supporting
Livestock Watering Other Fully Supporting
Primary Contact Recreation Fully Supporting
Wildlife Habitat Aquatic-life or related Fully Supporting
Warmwater Aquatic Life Aquatic-life or related 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
PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory Coldwater Aquatic Life 2006 TMDL priority: Medium
Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory Coldwater Aquatic Life 2010 TMDL priority: Medium
Nutrients Coldwater Aquatic Life 2026 TMDL priority: High

Reading the record

Cleanup queue for Abiquiu Reservoir

1 listed cause ranked High in the TMDL queue, still without a plan

New Mexico ranked Nutrients high in its TMDL development queue, and no cleanup plan is on file for that listing yet. That queue rank is the state's own scheduling signal, not an EPA national rule.

A High ranking names a position in the state's plan-writing queue; it is not a measure of how impaired the water is. How listing and cleanup work.

Scale and rank

Abiquiu Reservoir is one of 176 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from New Mexico, and one of 58 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 3,258 assessed acres it ranks 925th 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 924 lakes with a larger one.

Open in the register

The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.

Why no water-level record

Abiquiu Reservoir has no daily USGS water-level or reservoir-storage series on this page because a site was matched, but it reports no daily water level or reservoir storage values in the trailing 365-day window. How PlainLakes links gauges.

In context

Where Abiquiu 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

3,258 Top 2% larger than 98% 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

3 Longer than most more listed causes than 90% 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 Abiquiu Reservoir. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

New Mexico context

ATTAINS carries 176 lake-type waterbodies in New Mexico, 46 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 28 fully supporting. Among the 58 indexed units there, Abiquiu Reservoir ranks 2nd by listed-cause count (3 listed causes) and 7th by assessed size among the 58 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (46 statewide) . Its listed causes include PCBs - Fish Consumption Advisory, Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory, and Nutrients, which also appear among New Mexico's most-filed impairment causes (led by Nutrients).

Other large assessed lakes in New Mexico Assessed acres
Navajo Reservoir Not Supporting 12,680
Elephant Butte Reservoir Not Supporting 10,909
South Lordsburg Playa Not Assessed 7,412
Ute Reservoir Not Supporting 5,988
Heron Reservoir Not Supporting 4,497
Laguna del Pero Fully Supporting 4,477

Peers near Abiquiu Reservoir's size or cause load

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (3,258 acres here).

Similar cause load

Nearest listed-cause counts (3 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.

How peers are picked

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 NM-2114_00. 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.