Florida lake · state assessment record
East Lake Tohopekaliga
Assessment decisions reported by Florida to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle. The cleanup plan below was established by EPA rather than by Florida.
- 12,141
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
East Lake Tohopekaliga, a lake in Florida, 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). 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 (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
- P99
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Fully 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.
Reading East Lake Tohopekaliga'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 East Lake Tohopekaliga nationally is assessed size: 12,141 acres, larger than 99% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Mixed use determinations
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.
East Lake Tohopekaliga: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on East Lake Tohopekaliga. The remaining work is implementation and tracking, read the cleanup-standing and cause rows for what the state already committed to address.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for East Lake Tohopekaliga 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, Florida carries 1,475 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to East Lake Tohopekaliga 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Fish and Wildlife Propagation - Freshwater | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2018 | TMDL established by EPA |
Reading the record
East Lake Tohopekaliga: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Florida 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.
Scale and rank
East Lake Tohopekaliga is one of 1,475 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Florida, and one of 973 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 12,141 assessed acres it ranks 266th 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 265 lakes with a larger one.
Why no water-level record
East Lake Tohopekaliga has no daily USGS water-level or reservoir-storage series on this page because NWIS lists a lake monitoring site named for the waterbody, but the site is not active, and PlainLakes ingests only the active inventory, so there is no series to attach. How PlainLakes links gauges.
In context
Where East Lake Tohopekaliga 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
12,141 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
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 East Lake Tohopekaliga. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Florida context
ATTAINS carries 1,475 lake-type waterbodies in Florida, 636 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 367 fully supporting. Among the 973 indexed units there, East Lake Tohopekaliga ranks 348th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 17th by assessed size among the 973 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (636 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury in Fish Tissue, which also appears among Florida's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total).
| Other large assessed lakes in Florida | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Okeechobee Not Supporting | 76,101 |
| Lake George Not Supporting | 43,576 |
| Lake Apopka Not Supporting | 30,909 |
| Lake Kissimmee Not Supporting | 30,671 |
| Lake Istokpoga Not Supporting | 26,673 |
| Lake Tohopekaliga Fully Supporting | 19,006 |
Peers near East Lake Tohopekaliga's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (12,141 acres here).
- Sam Rayburn Reservoir · 12,117 acres · TX
- Richland-Chambers Reservoir · 12,175 acres · TX
- Perry Lake · 12,200 acres · KS
- Allegheny Reservoir-05010001002698 · 12,211 acres · PA
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 FL3172. 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.