Tennessee reservoir · state assessment record
Arrow Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Tennessee to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle.
- 56
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Arrow Lake, a reservoir in Tennessee, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 7 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2022). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (7 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P57
- Assessed size nationally
- P1
- 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.
How Arrow Lake reads against the filed register
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: in-state cause rank
Inside Tennessee, cause-list rank is the local separator: Arrow Lake is 1 of 73 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.
Longer than most cause lists
7 listed causes puts this unit above 99% 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.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
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.
Arrow Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Arrow Lake. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Small within Tennessee
State size rank 68 of 73 puts Arrow Lake toward the small end of Tennessee's indexed lake-type units with an area.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Tennessee carries 117 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Arrow Lake 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. Tennessee filed its own confidence on the 3 definitive verdicts it rated: Good. That rating is the filer's, in EPA's own field, and EPA publishes no definition of the four words it offers.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish and Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Irrigation | Other | Not Assessed |
| Livestock Watering and Wildlife | Other | Not Assessed |
| Recreation | Recreation | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ammonia, Un-Ionized | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | 4B Restoration Approach |
| Chloride | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | 4B Restoration Approach |
| Nitrate/Nitrite (Nitrite + Nitrate as N) | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Phosphorus, Total | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | TMDL priority: Low |
| pH | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2012 | 4B Restoration Approach |
| Selenium | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2022 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) | Domestic Water Supply, Industrial Water Supply | 2022 | TMDL priority: Low |
Probable sources named by the state
Each source below is listed under the cause the state filed it against, and carries the word the state filed with it — confirmed, or suspected.
- Ammonia, Un-Ionized
- Landfills (suspected)
- Chloride
- Landfills (suspected)
- Nitrate/Nitrite (Nitrite + Nitrate as N)
- Landfills (suspected)
- Phosphorus, Total
- Surface Mining (suspected)
- pH
- Landfills (suspected)
- Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)
- Landfills (suspected)
Tennessee also recorded the source of at least one listing here as unknown, including for Selenium.
Reading the record
Where Arrow Lake sits among peers
1 of 4 Tennessee lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Tennessee ruled definitively on 3 designated uses at Arrow Lake and found none of them supported. The dataset shows 4 Tennessee lakes judged to that same depth.
Tennessee's assessed lakes are most often judged on 5 or more uses; this one was judged on 3.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 13 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 0 | 3 | 11 | 31 |
| None supported | 10 | 2 | 1 (this record) | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Arrow Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Arrow Lake is one of 117 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Tennessee, and one of 73 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 56 assessed acres it ranks 16,483rd 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 16,482 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.
Reported trophic class
Tennessee carried the trophic field for this assessment unit and filed it as unclassified, which records that no class was determined rather than that the water is unenriched. What the trophic scale measures.
In context
Where Arrow Lake 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
56 Top 43% larger than 57% 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
7 Longer than most more listed causes than 99% 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 Arrow Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Tennessee context
ATTAINS carries 117 lake-type waterbodies in Tennessee, 60 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 16 fully supporting. Among the 73 indexed units there, Arrow Lake ranks 1st by listed-cause count (7 listed causes) and 68th by assessed size among the 73 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (60 statewide) . Its listed causes (Ammonia, Un-Ionized; Chloride; Nitrate/Nitrite (Nitrite + Nitrate as N); Phosphorus, Total; pH; Selenium; and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)) sit outside Tennessee's top-five list, which is led by Mercury in Fish Tissue.
| Other large assessed lakes in Tennessee | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Kentucky Reservoir Fully Supporting | 99,500 |
| Chickamauga Reservoir Fully Supporting | 35,400 |
| Watts Bar Reservoir Not Supporting | 34,075 |
| Douglas Reservoir Fully Supporting | 30,400 |
| Old Hickory Reservoir Fully Supporting | 27,439 |
| Cherokee Reservoir Not Supporting | 25,964 |
Peers near Arrow Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (56 acres here).
- Kennels Pond · 56 acres · NY
- Vance · 56 acres · MN
- Yankee Meadow Reservoir · 56 acres · UT
- Arfelin Lake · 56 acres · MI
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (7 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Adder Pond · 7 causes · NH
- Barton Cove · 7 causes · MA
- Blue Heron Lagoon · 7 causes · MI
- Bound Brook (below fork at 74d 25m 15s) · 7 causes · NJ
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 TN06040003ARROWLK_1000. 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.