Idaho lake · state assessment record
Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam)
Assessment decisions reported by Idaho to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 13,194
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam), a lake in Idaho, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 9 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 1% of assessed lakes nationally (38,628 lakes with a filed area); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (9 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P99
- Assessed size nationally
- P0
- 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.
Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) against the ATTAINS 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: 9 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 100% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Large assessed unit
At 13,194 acres, Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (242 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
No ruled-on use clears the bar
On the uses this filer ruled on, recreation, aquatic life, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam): Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam). Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Large within Idaho
Among Idaho's 186 indexed units with an area, Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) ranks 5 by assessed size, toward the large end of that state file.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Idaho carries 630 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) 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. Idaho filed its own confidence on the one definitive verdict 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Water Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Supporting |
| Aesthetic | Other | Not Assessed |
| Agricultural Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Wildlife Habitat | Other | 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 and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Primary Contact Recreation, Cold Water Aquatic Life | 1994 | TMDL priority: High |
| Sedimentation/Siltation | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 1994 | TMDL approved |
| Temperature | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 1994 | TMDL approved |
| Phosphorus, Total | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2006 | TMDL approved |
| Dissolved Oxygen | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2012 | TMDL approved |
| DDD (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane) | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2014 | TMDL approved |
| DDE (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene) | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2014 | TMDL approved |
| DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2014 | TMDL approved |
| Dieldrin | Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2014 | TMDL approved |
Reading the record
Cleanup queue for Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam)
1 listed cause ranked High in the TMDL queue, still without a plan
Idaho ranked Mercury high in its TMDL development queue, and no cleanup plan is on file for that listing yet. That queue rank is the state's own scheduling signal, not an EPA national rule.
A High ranking names a position in the state's plan-writing queue; it is not a measure of how impaired the water is. How listing and cleanup work.
Scale and rank
Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) is one of 630 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Idaho, and one of 186 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 13,194 assessed acres it ranks 243rd 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 242 lakes with a larger one.
Not yet on record
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.
In context
Where Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) 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
13,194 Top 1% larger than 99% 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
9 Longer than most more listed causes than 99%+ 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 Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Idaho context
ATTAINS carries 630 lake-type waterbodies in Idaho, 51 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 198 fully supporting. Among the 186 indexed units there, Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam) ranks 1st by listed-cause count (9 listed causes) and 5th by assessed size among the 186 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (51 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury; Sedimentation/Siltation; Phosphorus, Total; and Dissolved Oxygen, which also appear among Idaho's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total). It also lists Temperature, DDD (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane), DDE (Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene), DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), and Dieldrin, outside that top-five list.
| Other large assessed lakes in Idaho | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Pend Oreille Lake Not Supporting | 80,829 |
| Bear Lake Not Assessed | 34,454 |
| American Falls Reservoir (Snake River) Not Supporting | 31,724 |
| Cascade Reservoir Not Supporting | 25,040 |
| American Falls Reservoir (Snake River) Tribal Waters Not Assessed | 23,785 |
| Grays Lake Not Assessed | 23,678 |
Peers near Brownlee Reservoir, Lower (Porters Flat to Brownlee Dam)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (13,194 acres here).
- Lake Livingston · 13,180 acres · TX
- <Null> · 13,212 acres · OR
- Hugo Lake · 13,250 acres · OK
- Lake Gogebic · 13,079 acres · MI
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (9 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Eagle Lake (Lassen County) · 9 causes · CA
- Evergreen · 9 causes · IL
- Gay Stamp Sands Area of Impact · 9 causes · MI
- Goose, Upper Lake · 9 causes · WA
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 ID17050201SW003_08. 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.