New York reservoir · state assessment record

Basic Creek Reservoir

Assessment decisions reported by New York to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle, a cycle that carries an interim EPA action.

237
Assessed acres
Lake / Reservoir / Pond
Water type
View watchlist

This waterbody in one line

Basic Creek Reservoir, a reservoir in New York, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2022), a cycle that carries an interim EPA action. By assessed acreage it sits in the upper quartile by assessed acreage nationally (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
P84
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.

F
Water Quality Standing
30/100
Basic Creek 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.

RecreationN/A
Not assessed
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
2 causes
Filed pollutant/stressor causes, vs. the national corpus of assessed active units
Assessment CurrencyB+
2022
Reporting cycle this record’s verdicts were last decided in

How Basic Creek Reservoir 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: assessed size

The number that most separates Basic Creek Reservoir nationally is assessed size: 236.8 acres, larger than 84% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.

No ruled-on use clears the bar

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.

Basic Creek Reservoir: Category 5, TMDL still owed

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

Longer than most cause lists

2 listed causes puts this unit above 80% 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.

Overall status: not supporting

The filer's overall status for Basic Creek 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 York carries 2,231 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Basic Creek Reservoir without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

Interim EPA action. New York decided this in its 2022 Integrated Report, which carries an interim EPA action and has not been finalized. The decisions below are what New York has proposed for that cycle; they can change before EPA takes final action on the cycle.
Reporting cycle
2022
Interim EPA action
Listing category
Category 5
Uses with verdicts
1
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
Fishing Aquatic-life or related Not Supporting
Primary Contact Recreation Recreation Insufficient Information
Secondary Contact Recreation Recreation Insufficient Information
Water Supply Drinking-water supply designation Insufficient Information

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
Phosphorus Fishing, Secondary Contact Recreation, Primary Contact Recreation Also assessed as meeting: Water Supply 2002 Action recorded (type not published)
Dissolved Oxygen Fishing 2022 TMDL priority: Medium

Reading the record

Where Basic Creek Reservoir sits among peers

94% of New York's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported (the standard result at this depth, not a distinction)

New York ruled definitively on a single designated use at Basic Creek Reservoir and found it not supported. The dataset shows 434 New York lakes judged to that same depth.

New York's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use, as this one was.

94 N

Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.

Share of New York lakes judged on a single designated use with the same outcome
Assessed lakes in New York by how many uses were ruled on and how those rulings came out
Less More
Assessed lakes in New York by how many uses were ruled on and how those rulings came out (lakes)
12345+
All supported 28351600
Mixed Not possible11060
None supported 406 (this record)8632100

Ringed cell: Basic Creek Reservoir. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.

Scale and rank

Basic Creek Reservoir is one of 2,231 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from New York, and one of 428 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 237 assessed acres it ranks 6,359th 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 6,358 lakes with a larger one.

Open in the register

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 Basic Creek 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

237 Top 16% larger than 84% 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 Basic Creek Reservoir. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

New York context

ATTAINS carries 2,231 lake-type waterbodies in New York, 563 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 79 fully supporting. Among the 428 indexed units there, Basic Creek Reservoir ranks 80th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 118th by assessed size among the 392 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (563 statewide) . Its listed causes include Phosphorus and Dissolved Oxygen, which also appear among New York's most-filed impairment causes (led by pH).

Other large assessed lakes in New York Assessed acres
Lake Champlain, Main Lake, Middle Not Supporting 54,972
Oneida Lake Not Supporting 51,269
Seneca Lake, Main Lake, Middle Fully Supporting 40,290
Cayuga Lake, Main Lake, Mid-South Fully Supporting 33,083
Lake George Not Supporting 28,523
Great Sacandaga Lake Not Supporting 24,722

Peers near Basic Creek Reservoir's size or cause load

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (237 acres here).

Similar cause load

Nearest listed-cause counts (2 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 NY1309-0001. 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.