Maine lake · state assessment record
Estes L
Assessment decisions reported by Maine to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 387
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Estes L, a lake in Maine, 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 in the upper quartile by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Maine rules it not supporting for fish consumption, while other fish-related uses are supported.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P89
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- fish-consumption or fishery
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 Estes L'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: in-state cause rank
Inside Maine, cause-list rank is the local separator: Estes L is 27 of 302 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.
Mixed use determinations
This record splits: Not Supporting on fish consumption, Fully Supporting on recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Estes L: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Estes L. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Large assessed unit
At 387 acres, Estes L clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (4,453 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Estes L 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, Maine carries 339 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Estes L 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. Maine filed 2023 as the year this waterbody was last monitored. Maine filed its own confidence on the 9 definitive verdicts it rated: 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural Supply | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Drinking Water Supply After Disinfection | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Hydroelectric Power Generation | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Industrial Process and Cooling Water Supply | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Navigation | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish and Other Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Insufficient Information Filer confidence: Good |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PFAS in Fish Tissue | Fish Consumption | 2024 | TMDL priority: Low |
Probable sources
Maine 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 Estes L sits among peers
10% of Maine's lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
Maine ruled definitively on 9 designated uses at Estes L and found 1 of 9 not supported. The dataset shows 303 Maine lakes judged to that same depth.
Maine's assessed lakes are most often judged on 5 or more uses, 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 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 272 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 0 | 0 | 0 | 31 (this record) |
| None supported | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Estes L. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Estes L is one of 339 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Maine, and one of 302 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 387 assessed acres it ranks 4,454th 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 4,453 lakes with a larger one.
Open in the register
The state has not yet filed a definitive aquatic-life verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.
In context
Where Estes L 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
387 Top 11% larger than 89% 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 Estes L. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Maine context
ATTAINS carries 339 lake-type waterbodies in Maine, 31 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 272 fully supporting. Among the 302 indexed units there, Estes L ranks 27th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 194th by assessed size among the 302 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (31 statewide) . Its listed causes include PFAS in Fish Tissue, which also appears among Maine's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total).
| Other large assessed lakes in Maine | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Moosehead Lake Fully Supporting | 79,454 |
| Sebago Lake Fully Supporting | 45,624 |
| Spednick Lake Fully Supporting | 35,904 |
| Chesuncook Lake Fully Supporting | 34,926 |
| Mooselookmeguntic Lake Fully Supporting | 32,243 |
| West Grand Lake Fully Supporting | 31,174 |
Peers near Estes L's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (387 acres here).
- Pate Lake · 387 acres · FL
- Elk Lake · 387 acres · OR
- Benjamin Lake · 388 acres · OR
- Ban · 388 acres · MN
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 ME0106000302_7L. 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.