Rhode Island lake · state assessment record
Deep Pond (Exeter)
Assessment decisions reported by Rhode Island to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 17
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Deep Pond (Exeter), a lake in Rhode Island, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). 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
- P30
- 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.
Where Deep Pond (Exeter) stands in 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.
Deep Pond (Exeter): Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Deep Pond (Exeter). 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 Deep Pond (Exeter) is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Small within Rhode Island
State size rank 109 of 126 puts Deep Pond (Exeter) toward the small end of Rhode Island's indexed lake-type units with an area.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Rhode Island carries 233 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Deep Pond (Exeter) 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. Rhode Island filed its own confidence on the one definitive verdict it rated: Fair. 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 Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Fair |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Secondary 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 and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dissolved Oxygen | Fish and Wildlife Habitat | 1992 | None reported |
| Phosphorus, Total | Fish and Wildlife Habitat | 2000 | None reported |
Probable sources
Rhode Island listed the source of the impairment as unknown. That is the state's own filed value, not a gap in this record: the cause has been identified, the origin has not.
Reading the record
Where Deep Pond (Exeter) sits among peers
84% of Rhode Island's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Rhode Island ruled definitively on a single designated use at Deep Pond (Exeter) and found it not supported. The dataset shows 43 Rhode Island lakes judged to that same depth.
Rhode Island's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use, as this one was.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 7 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 3 | 16 | 34 | 1 |
| None supported | 36 (this record) | 23 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Deep Pond (Exeter). Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Deep Pond (Exeter) is one of 233 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Rhode Island, and one of 126 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 17 assessed acres it ranks 27,279th 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 27,278 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
Rhode Island 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 Deep Pond (Exeter) 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
17 Top 70% larger than 30% 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 Deep Pond (Exeter). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Rhode Island context
ATTAINS carries 233 lake-type waterbodies in Rhode Island, 119 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 21 fully supporting. Among the 126 indexed units there, Deep Pond (Exeter) ranks 66th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 109th by assessed size among the 126 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (119 statewide) . Its listed causes include Dissolved Oxygen; and Phosphorus, Total, which also appear among Rhode Island's most-filed impairment causes (led by Non-Native Aquatic Plants).
| Other large assessed lakes in Rhode Island | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Scituate Reservoir Fully Supporting | 3,277 |
| Worden Pond Not Supporting | 1,051 |
| Flat River Reservoir (Johnson Pond) Not Supporting | 647 |
| Watchaug Pond Not Supporting | 568 |
| Stafford Pond Not Supporting | 480 |
| Watson Reservoir Not Supporting | 371 |
Peers near Deep Pond (Exeter)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (17 acres here).
- Beaver Lake · 17 acres · WI
- East Lake · 17 acres · WI
- Twin Lake · 17 acres · WI
- Tapps Lake · 17 acres · WA
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 RI0008040L-12. 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.