New Mexico reservoir · state assessment record
Bluewater Lake
Assessment decisions reported by New Mexico to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 617
- Assessed acres
- Reservoir
- Water type
- 7,364.7 ft
- Water Surface Elevation (provisional)
This waterbody in one line
Bluewater Lake, a reservoir in New Mexico, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 10% 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. A USGS gauge tracks its water surface elevation daily.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P92
- 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.
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 Bluewater 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: assessed size
The number that most separates Bluewater Lake nationally is assessed size: 617.1 acres, larger than 92% 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.
Bluewater Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Bluewater Lake. 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 Bluewater Lake 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 Bluewater 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Coldwater Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Irrigation | Other | Not Assessed |
| Livestock Watering | Other | Not Assessed |
| Wildlife Habitat | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nutrients | Coldwater Aquatic Life | 2014 | TMDL approved |
| Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory | Coldwater Aquatic Life | 2024 | TMDL priority: Medium |
Reading the record
Where Bluewater Lake sits among peers
1 of 11 New Mexico lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
New Mexico ruled definitively on 2 designated uses at Bluewater Lake and found 1 of 2 not supported. The dataset shows 11 New Mexico lakes judged to that same depth.
New Mexico's assessed lakes are most often judged on 5 or more uses; this one was judged on 2.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 3 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 1 (this record) | 0 | 9 | 29 |
| None supported | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Bluewater Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Bluewater Lake 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 617 assessed acres it ranks 3,220th 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 3,219 lakes with a larger one.
Water level
A USGS gauge tracks this reservoir's water surface elevation daily, and the latest reading is 0.48 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 7.3 ft. 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.
Water level: 365-day record
Daily water surface elevation values, feet above the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29), from USGS gauge 08341400 (Bluewater Lake Near Bluewater, Nm), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions. Each daily value is a single reading taken at 24:00, not a daily mean. It is the only daily statistic USGS files for this gauge.
- Latest reading
- 7,364.7 ft 0.47999999999956344ft vs 30 days earlier
- 2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Water level: 365-day record
Subscribe to water level updates for Bluewater Lake (RSS)
Every daily value in this window is provisional and subject to USGS revision: USGS has not yet approved any value in the trailing 365 days of this record.
Full gauge record: USGS monitoring location 08341400
In context
Where Bluewater 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
617 Top 8% larger than 92% 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 Bluewater Lake. 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, Bluewater Lake ranks 14th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 13th by assessed size among the 58 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (46 statewide) . Its listed causes include Nutrients and Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory, 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 Bluewater Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (617 acres here).
- Shoal Creek (Jordan Lake) · 617 acres · AL
- Devils Canyon · 618 acres · OR
- Sly Creek Reservoir (Butte County) · 618 acres · CA
- Big Pine · 617 acres · MN
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (2 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 12th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 31st St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 49th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 57th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
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
- Water levels shown are daily snapshots. Seasonal drawdown and datum conventions matter when comparing levels. How to read level data
- 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-2107.B_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.