South Carolina lake · state assessment record
Cw-197
Assessment decisions reported by South Carolina to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- Lake
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Cw-197, a lake in South Carolina, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). Its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as fully supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Fully Supporting
- aquatic life
- Not Supporting
- fish consumption
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.
Cw-197 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: in-state cause rank
Inside South Carolina, cause-list rank is the local separator: Cw-197 is 90 of 473 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.
The uses disagree
This record splits: Not Supporting on fish consumption, Fully Supporting on recreation, aquatic life. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Cw-197: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Cw-197. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Cw-197 is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Typical cause-list length
1 listed cause is a middle-tercile list length among assessed lake-type units. Look to IR category and use outcomes for the distinctive reading.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, South Carolina carries 611 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Cw-197 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aquatic Life Support | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCBs in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2024 | TMDL priority: Low |
Reading the record
Where Cw-197 sits among peers
9 of 14 South Carolina lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
South Carolina ruled definitively on 3 designated uses at Cw-197 and found 1 of 3 not supported. The dataset shows 14 South Carolina lakes judged to that same depth.
South Carolina's assessed lakes are most often judged on 2 uses; this one was judged on 3.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 67 | 258 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 101 | 9 (this record) | 0 | 0 |
| None supported | 86 | 14 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Cw-197. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Cw-197 is one of 611 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from South Carolina, and one of 473 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. The state filed this assessment unit with a size of 0 acres, which is a figure rather than a measurement, so no size comparison is possible.
In context
Where Cw-197 sits nationally
Listed causes vs waterbodies carrying a verdict
How many impairment causes U.S. waterbodies with a reported verdict carry
1 Longer than most more listed causes than 49% 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 Cw-197. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
South Carolina context
ATTAINS carries 611 lake-type waterbodies in South Carolina, 212 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 328 fully supporting. Among the 473 indexed units there, Cw-197 ranks 90th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) ; it sits in the not-supporting set (212 statewide) . Its listed causes (PCBs in Fish Tissue) sit outside South Carolina's top-five list, which is led by Phosphorus, Total.
Lakes near Cw-197's cause load
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (1 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Aaron · 1 causes · MN
- Aaron River Reservoir · 1 causes · MA
- Abbotts Creek (including Lexington-Thomasville Water Supply Reservoir at normal reservoir elevation, Tom-A-Lex Lake) · 1 causes · NC
- Abeniki Lake · 1 causes · NH
What to do with this record
- The fish-consumption use is assessed as not supporting. Before eating fish from this lake, check your state fish-advisory program for species-specific meal limits. 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 SCCW-197. 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.