Arizona lake · state assessment record
Black Canyon Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Arizona to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.
- 37
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Black Canyon Lake, a lake in Arizona, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2026). By assessed acreage it sits below the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Fish consumption is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P48
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- fish consumption
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 Black Canyon Lake'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: in-state cause rank
Inside Arizona, cause-list rank 31 of 44 is mid-pack, the state peer table is not driven by an extreme list length here.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Black Canyon Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Black Canyon 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 Black Canyon Lake is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Small within Arizona
State size rank 39 of 44 puts Black Canyon Lake toward the small end of Arizona's indexed lake-type units with an area.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Arizona carries 78 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Black Canyon 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.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Agricultural Irrigation | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Agricultural Livestock Watering | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Aquatic and Wildlife (Coldwater Fishery) | Aquatic-life or related | Insufficient Information |
| Domestic Water Source | Drinking-water supply designation | Insufficient Information |
| Full Body Contact | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this lake, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2022 | TMDL priority: Low |
Reading the record
Where Black Canyon Lake sits among peers
65% of Arizona's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Arizona ruled definitively on a single designated use at Black Canyon Lake and found it not supported. The dataset shows 20 Arizona lakes judged to that same depth.
Arizona's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use, as this one was.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 7 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 1 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| None supported | 13 (this record) | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Black Canyon Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Black Canyon Lake is one of 78 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Arizona, and one of 44 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 37 assessed acres it ranks 20,263rd 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 20,262 lakes with a larger one.
Awaiting a filing
The state has not yet filed a definitive recreation verdict and a definitive aquatic-life verdict for this record; those fields populate when it reports them in a future Integrated Report cycle.
Reported trophic class
Arizona 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 Black Canyon 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
37 Top 52% larger than 48% 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 Black Canyon Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Arizona context
ATTAINS carries 78 lake-type waterbodies in Arizona, 34 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 20 fully supporting. Among the 44 indexed units there, Black Canyon Lake ranks 31st by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 39th by assessed size among the 44 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (34 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury in Fish Tissue, which also appears among Arizona's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury in Fish Tissue).
| Other large assessed lakes in Arizona | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Mohave Not Supporting | 27,044 |
| Lake Havasu Not Supporting | 19,780 |
| Roosevelt Lake Not Supporting | 18,345 |
| Lake Powell Not Supporting | 9,770 |
| Lake Pleasant Not Supporting | 8,000 |
| Topock Marsh Not Assessed | 4,870 |
Peers near Black Canyon Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (37 acres here).
- Kellis Pond · 37 acres · NY
- Lake Sunnyside · 37 acres · NY
- Lake Tibet · 37 acres · NY
- Dog Fish · 37 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
- The fish-consumption use is assessed as not supporting. Before eating fish from this lake, check your state fish-advisory program for species-specific meal limits. 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 AZL15020010-0180_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.