Louisiana lake · state assessment record
Cheniere Brake Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Louisiana to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2018 reporting cycle.
- 2,682
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Cheniere Brake Lake, a lake in Louisiana, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2018). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% 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.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P97
- 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 Cheniere Brake 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 Cheniere Brake Lake nationally is assessed size: 2,682 acres, larger than 97% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Every filed use falls short
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.
Cheniere Brake Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Cheniere Brake 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 Cheniere Brake 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, Louisiana carries 76 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Cheniere Brake 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. The latest monitoring Louisiana filed against this record runs through 2019. For the one definitive verdict on this record, Louisiana filed the assessment basis as Monitored Data. Those are EPA's own words, not PlainLakes' summary of them. Louisiana filed its own confidence on the one definitive verdict it rated: Fair and 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fish and Wildlife Propagation | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Fair on physical/chemical; Good on toxicological |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information Filer confidence: Fair |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information Filer confidence: Fair |
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 - Fish Consumption Advisory | Fish and Wildlife Propagation | 2000 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Dissolved Oxygen | None; the one use assessed against it was met | 2008 | 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.
- Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory
- Atmospheric Deposition - Toxics (suspected)
- Dissolved Oxygen
- Natural Sources (suspected)
Louisiana also recorded the source of at least one listing here as unknown, including for Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory.
Reading the record
Where Cheniere Brake Lake sits among peers
12 of 13 Louisiana lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported (the standard result at this depth, not a distinction)
Louisiana ruled definitively on a single designated use at Cheniere Brake Lake and found it not supported. The dataset shows 13 Louisiana lakes judged to that same depth.
Louisiana's assessed lakes are most often judged on 3 uses; this one was judged on 1.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 1 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 4 | 31 | 11 | 6 |
| None supported | 12 (this record) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Cheniere Brake Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Cheniere Brake Lake is one of 76 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Louisiana, and one of 74 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 2,682 assessed acres it ranks 1,088th 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 1,087 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.
Reported trophic class
Louisiana 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 Cheniere Brake 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
2,682 Top 3% larger than 97% 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 Cheniere Brake Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Louisiana context
ATTAINS carries 76 lake-type waterbodies in Louisiana, 64 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 11 fully supporting. Among the 74 indexed units there, Cheniere Brake Lake ranks 19th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 30th by assessed size among the 74 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (64 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory and Dissolved Oxygen, which also appear among Louisiana's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury - Fish Consumption Advisory).
| Other large assessed lakes in Louisiana | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Toledo Bend Reservoir-From Texas-Louisiana state line to Toledo Bend Dam Not Supporting | 165,487 |
| White Lake Not Supporting | 56,487 |
| Lake Salvador Not Supporting | 49,477 |
| Grand Lake Not Supporting | 47,869 |
| Lac Des Allemands Not Supporting | 16,596 |
| Catahoula Lake Not Supporting | 16,509 |
Peers near Cheniere Brake Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (2,682 acres here).
- Clinch River Arm of Watts Bar Reservoir · 2,682 acres · TN
- Silver Lake · 2,680 acres · OR
- Hinckley Reservoir · 2,684 acres · NY
- Middle · 2,679 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
- 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 LA080802_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.