Nebraska lake · state assessment record
Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr)
Assessment decisions reported by Nebraska to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2016 reporting cycle.
- 20
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr), a lake in Nebraska, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2016). By assessed acreage it sits below the national median by assessed acreage (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
- P33
- 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 Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) 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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 2 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 80% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
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.
Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr): Category 4C reading
Category 4C marks impairment from pollution that is not a pollutant (for example habitat or flow alteration) on Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr). A classic TMDL load model often does not apply; the cause list should name the non-pollutant stressor.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Mid-pack assessed size
20.3 acres lands in the middle tercile of units with an area filed. Acreage is not what distinguishes this record from its peers.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Nebraska carries 554 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetics | Other | Fully Supporting |
| Agricultural Water Supply | Other | Not Supporting |
| Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this lake, with the cycle each was first listed. None is a pollutant, so none carries a TMDL cleanup plan.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specific Conductivity | Agricultural Water Supply | 2004 | Not applicable (non-pollutant) |
| Dissolved Oxygen | Aquatic Life | 2014 | Not applicable (non-pollutant) |
Reading the record
Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr): Category 4C reading
4C Category 4C: impaired by a non-pollutant; TMDL programme does not apply
Nebraska filed this assessment unit as Category 4C: the impairment is not caused by a pollutant, so the Clean Water Act 303(d) cleanup-plan (TMDL) programme, which allocates pollutant loads, does not apply here.
A 4C listing is still an impairment finding about designated uses; it is not a clean bill of health. How listing and cleanup work.
Scale and rank
Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) is one of 554 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Nebraska, and one of 250 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 20 assessed acres it ranks 25,993rd 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 25,992 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.
In context
Where Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) 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
20 Top 67% larger than 33% 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 Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Nebraska context
ATTAINS carries 554 lake-type waterbodies in Nebraska, 219 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 138 fully supporting. Among the 250 indexed units there, Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr) ranks 108th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 143rd by assessed size among the 247 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (219 statewide) . Its listed causes (Specific Conductivity and Dissolved Oxygen) sit outside Nebraska's top-five list, which is led by Mercury in Fish Tissue.
| Other large assessed lakes in Nebraska | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lewis and Clark Lake Not Supporting | 25,174 |
| Lake C. W. McConaughy Fully Supporting | 24,868 |
| Harlan County Reservoir Not Supporting | 12,821 |
| Calamus Reservoir Not Supporting | 5,028 |
| Swanson Reservoir Not Supporting | 4,660 |
| Sutherland Reservoir Fully Supporting | 2,954 |
Peers near Border Lake (Crescent Lake Nwr)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (20 acres here).
- Crescent Lake · 20 acres · FL
- Blue · 20 acres · MN
- Contest · 20 acres · MN
- Island Lake (El Dorado County) · 20 acres · CA
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
- 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 NE-NP2-L0300. 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.