Oregon reservoir · state assessment record
Fall Creek Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Oregon to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 1,716
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
- 806.5 ft
- Water Surface Elevation (provisional)
This waterbody in one line
Fall Creek Lake, a reservoir in Oregon, 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 5% by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. A USGS gauge tracks its water surface elevation daily.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P96
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- 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 Fall Creek Lake 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: assessed size
The number that most separates Fall Creek Lake nationally is assessed size: 1,716 acres, larger than 96% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
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.
Fall Creek Lake: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Fall Creek Lake. 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 Fall Creek Lake 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, Oregon carries 1,431 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Fall Creek Lake 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 and Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Aesthetic Quality | Other | Not Assessed |
| Boating | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
| Hydropower | Other | Not Assessed |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Irrigation | Other | Not Assessed |
| Livestock Watering | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Private Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Insufficient Information |
| Public Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Insufficient Information |
| Water Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
| Wildlife and Hunting | Other | Not Assessed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temperature | Fish and Aquatic Life | 2010 | Action recorded (type not published) |
Reading the record
Fall Creek Lake: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Oregon 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
Fall Creek Lake is one of 1,431 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Oregon, and one of 167 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 1,716 assessed acres it ranks 1,532nd 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 1,531 lakes with a larger one.
Water level
A USGS gauge tracks this reservoir's water surface elevation daily, and the latest reading is 8.65 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 147.0 ft. 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.
Water level: 365-day record
Daily water surface elevation values, feet above the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29), from USGS gauge 14150900 (Fall Creek Lake Near Lowell, or), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions. Each daily value is a single reading taken at 24:00, not a daily mean. It is the only daily statistic USGS files for this gauge.
- Latest reading
- 806.5 ft 8.649999999999977ft vs 30 days earlier
- 2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Water level: 365-day record
Subscribe to water level updates for Fall Creek Lake (RSS)
222 of the 365 daily values in this window (61%) are provisional and subject to USGS revision; USGS has approved this gauge's record through 2026-01-05.
USGS operates 2 monitoring sites carrying this lake’s name; this record reads site 14150900, the only one reporting daily values. The other site is 435649122452000. Each site measures against its own zero, so their readings are not interchangeable.
USGS monitoring locations on this lake: 14150900 (read here), 435649122452000
In context
Where Fall Creek 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
1,716 Top 4% larger than 96% 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 Fall Creek Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Oregon context
ATTAINS carries 1,431 lake-type waterbodies in Oregon, 165 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 14 fully supporting. Among the 167 indexed units there, Fall Creek Lake ranks 105th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 54th by assessed size among the 167 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (165 statewide) . Its listed causes include Temperature, which also appears among Oregon's most-filed impairment causes (led by Temperature).
| Other large assessed lakes in Oregon | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Goose Lake Not reported | 93,152 |
| Malheur Slough Not Supporting | 73,544 |
| Upper Klamath Lake Not Supporting | 62,130 |
| Columbia River Not Supporting | 55,630 |
| Lake Abert Not Assessed | 44,751 |
| Summer Lake Not reported | 31,606 |
Peers near Fall Creek Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (1,716 acres here).
- Caddo Lake · 1,716 acres · TX
- Haiwee Reservoir · 1,716 acres · CA
- Lake Superior · 1,716 acres · WI
- Woodward Reservoir · 1,717 acres · CA
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
- Assessment verdicts are cycle-based, not real-time. For fish-consumption decisions, your state advisory program is the binding source. Consumption status guide
- Water levels shown are daily snapshots. Seasonal drawdown and datum conventions matter when comparing levels. How to read level data
- 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 OR_LK_1709000109_02_100701. 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.