Alabama reservoir · state assessment record
Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) (249 acres)
Assessment decisions reported by Alabama Department of Environmental Management to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2016 reporting cycle.
- 249
- Assessed acres
- Reservoir
- Water type
- Eutrophic
- Reported trophic class
This waterbody in one line
Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake), a reservoir in Alabama, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2016). By assessed acreage it sits in the upper quartile by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Alabama assesses fishing as supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P84
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- 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.
Where Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) stands in 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 Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) nationally is assessed size: 249.4 acres, larger than 84% 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 fish consumption, recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake): Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake). 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 Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Typical cause-list length
1 listed cause is a middle-tercile list length among assessed lake-type units. Look to IR category and use outcomes for the distinctive reading.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Alabama carries 304 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek 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. Alabama filed 2013 as the year this waterbody was last monitored. For the definitive verdicts on this record, Alabama filed the assessment basis as Monitored Data. Those are EPA's own words, not PlainLakes' summary of them. Alabama filed its own confidence on the 4 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Drinking and Food Processing | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Industrial and Agriculture Uses | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Propagation of Fish and Wildlife | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) | Propagation of Fish and Wildlife | 2016 | 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.
- Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
- Agriculture (suspected)
Reading the record
Where Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) sits among peers
38% of Alabama's lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
Alabama ruled definitively on 5 designated uses at Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) and found 1 of 5 not supported. The dataset shows 94 Alabama lakes judged to that same depth.
Alabama's assessed lakes are most often judged on 4 uses; this one was judged on 5.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 0 | 5 | 8 | 70 | 47 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 0 | 4 | 71 | 36 (this record) |
| None supported | 8 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11 |
Ringed cell: Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake). Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) is one of 304 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Alabama, and one of 263 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 249 assessed acres it ranks 6,121st 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 6,120 lakes with a larger one.
Reported trophic class
Eutrophic is the trophic class the filing agency reported to EPA ATTAINS for this assessment unit. It describes nutrient enrichment, not whether the water is safe, and it is not a PlainLakes inference. What the trophic scale measures.
In context
Where Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek 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
249 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
1 Longer than most more listed causes than 49% 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 Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Alabama context
ATTAINS carries 304 lake-type waterbodies in Alabama, 143 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 130 fully supporting. Among the 263 indexed units there, Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake) ranks 114th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 177th by assessed size among the 263 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (143 statewide) . Its listed causes include Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), which also appears among Alabama's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury).
| Other large assessed lakes in Alabama | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Tennessee River (Lake Guntersville) Fully Supporting | 20,440 |
| Wheeler Lake Not Supporting | 18,705 |
| Tallapoosa River (Lake Martin) Fully Supporting | 15,867 |
| Coosa River (Weiss Lake) Not Supporting | 15,066 |
| Tennessee River (Wheeler Lake) Not Supporting | 13,441 |
| Tennessee River (Wilson Lake) Not Supporting | 13,363 |
Peers near Bear Creek (Upper Bear Creek Lake)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (249 acres here).
- Hosmer Lake · 249 acres · OR
- Pigeon · 249 acres · MN
- Pretty Lake · 249 acres · FL
- Leander · 250 acres · MN
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (1 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Aaron · 1 causes · MN
- Aaron River Reservoir · 1 causes · MA
- Abbotts Creek (including Lexington-Thomasville Water Supply Reservoir at normal reservoir elevation, Tom-A-Lex Lake) · 1 causes · NC
- Abeniki Lake · 1 causes · NH
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 AL06030006-0102-102. 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.