Alabama reservoir · state assessment record

Coosa River (Weiss Lake) (15,066 acres)

Assessment decisions reported by Alabama Department of Environmental Management to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle. Both cleanup plans below were established by EPA rather than by Alabama.

15,066
Assessed acres
Reservoir
Water type
View watchlist

This waterbody in one line

Coosa River (Weiss Lake), a reservoir in Alabama, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2022). 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 (2 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Alabama assesses fishing as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.

Not Supporting
overall status
P99
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.

F
Water Quality Standing
15/100
Coosa River (Weiss Lake)

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.

RecreationF
Not supporting
Swimming, boating, and other primary/secondary contact recreation
Drinking WaterF
Not supporting
Suitability as a public drinking-water source
Aquatic LifeF
Not supporting
Support for fish, invertebrates, and other aquatic organisms
Fish ConsumptionF
Not supporting
Safety of eating fish caught in this water
Impairment BurdenF
2 causes
Filed pollutant/stressor causes, vs. the national corpus of assessed active units
Assessment CurrencyB+
2022
Reporting cycle this record’s verdicts were last decided in

Reading Coosa River (Weiss 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: assessed size

The number that most separates Coosa River (Weiss Lake) nationally is assessed size: 15,066 acres, larger than 99% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.

Every ruled-on use is not supporting

On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, 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.

Coosa River (Weiss Lake): Category 4A reading

Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Coosa River (Weiss Lake). The remaining work is implementation and tracking, read the cleanup-standing and cause rows for what the state already committed to address.

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 Coosa River (Weiss 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, Alabama carries 304 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Coosa River (Weiss Lake) without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

EPA-established cleanup plans. EPA, not Alabama, established both cleanup plans on this record. ATTAINS records the agency responsible for each determination and records EPA's for these; it does not record why. The Clean Water Act provides for EPA to establish a load itself where a state does not submit one, or where EPA disapproves the one it submits.
Reporting cycle
2022
Alabama Integrated Report
Listing category
Category 4A
Uses with verdicts
5
Definitive use assessments
Sources retrieved
2026-08-17
Portal-wide ATTAINS + NWIS pull

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
Contact Recreation Recreation Not Supporting
Drinking and Food Processing Drinking-water supply designation Not Supporting
Fishing Fish-consumption or fishery Not Supporting
Industrial and Agriculture Uses Other Not Supporting
Propagation of Fish and Wildlife Aquatic-life or related Not Supporting

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 Propagation of Fish and Wildlife; Fishing 1996 TMDL established by EPA
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) Propagation of Fish and Wildlife; Drinking and Food Processing; Fishing; Contact Recreation; Industrial and Agriculture Uses 1996 TMDL established by EPA

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.

Nutrients
Industrial Point Source Discharge (suspected)
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)
Impacts From Hydrostructure Flow Regulation/Modification (suspected) Municipal Point Source Discharges (suspected)

Reading the record

Coosa River (Weiss Lake): Category 4A reading

4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed

Alabama filed this assessment unit as Category 4A: impaired, with a pollutant-budget TMDL already completed under 303(d). The listing remains an impairment finding; the plan is on file rather than still awaiting write-up.

How listing and cleanup work.

Scale and rank

Coosa River (Weiss Lake) is one of 304 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Alabama, and one of 263 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 15,066 assessed acres it ranks 209th 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 208 lakes with a larger one.

In context

Where Coosa River (Weiss 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

15,066 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

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 Coosa River (Weiss Lake). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

Alabama context

ATTAINS carries 304 lake-type waterbodies in Alabama, 143 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 130 fully supporting. Among the 263 indexed units there, Coosa River (Weiss Lake) ranks 35th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 4th by assessed size among the 263 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (143 statewide) . Its listed causes include Nutrients and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), which also appear among Alabama's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury).

Other large assessed lakes in Alabama Assessed acres
Tennessee River (Lake Guntersville) Fully Supporting 20,440
Wheeler Lake Not Supporting 18,705
Tallapoosa River (Lake Martin) Fully Supporting 15,867
Tennessee River (Wheeler Lake) Not Supporting 13,441
Tennessee River (Wilson Lake) Not Supporting 13,363
Coosa River (Logan Martin Lake) Not Supporting 10,945

Peers near Coosa River (Weiss Lake)'s size or cause load

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (15,066 acres here).

Similar cause load

Nearest listed-cause counts (2 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.

How peers are picked

What to do with this record

  • The listing here is on a fishery use, not on fish consumption, and this state reported no consumption verdict for this reservoir. Your state fish-advisory program is the source for whether the catch is safe to eat. 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 AL03150105-1003-102. 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.