Arkansas lake · state assessment record
Grand Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Arkansas to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2016 reporting cycle. The cleanup plan below was established by EPA rather than by Arkansas.
- 1,400
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Grand Lake, a lake in Arkansas, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2016). 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.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P95
- 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.
How Grand Lake reads against 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 Grand Lake nationally is assessed size: 1,400 acres, larger than 95% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Every filed use falls short
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.
Grand Lake: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Grand 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 Grand 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, Arkansas carries 144 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Grand 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural Water Supply | Other | Fully Supporting |
| Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Fully Supporting |
| Other Uses | Other | Fully Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nutrients | Aquatic Life | 2002 | TMDL established by EPA |
Reading the record
Grand Lake: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Arkansas 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
Grand Lake is one of 144 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Arkansas, and one of 69 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 1,400 assessed acres it ranks 1,785th 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 1,784 lakes with a larger one.
Awaiting a filing
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.
In context
Where Grand 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
1,400 Top 5% larger than 95% 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 Grand Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Arkansas context
ATTAINS carries 144 lake-type waterbodies in Arkansas, 62 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 55 fully supporting. Among the 69 indexed units there, Grand Lake ranks 18th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 15th by assessed size among the 69 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (62 statewide) . Its listed causes include Nutrients, which also appears among Arkansas's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury in Fish Tissue).
| Other large assessed lakes in Arkansas | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Dardanelle Lake Fully Supporting | 34,041 |
| Millwood Lake Fully Supporting | 29,500 |
| Ouachita Lake Fully Supporting | 24,695 |
| Bull Shoals Not Supporting | 22,046 |
| Greers Ferry Lake Fully Supporting | 18,151 |
| Felsenthal Lake Not Supporting | 14,000 |
Peers near Grand Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (1,400 acres here).
- Cagles Mill Lake · 1,400 acres · IN
- Lake Panorama · 1,400 acres · IA
- Trinidad Reservoir. · 1,400 acres · CO
- Crow Creek (Lake Guntersville) · 1,400 acres · AL
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
- 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 AR_08050002_4020. 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.