Pennsylvania reservoir · state assessment record
Lake Erie-04120200
Assessment decisions reported by Pennsylvania to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2016 reporting cycle.
- 63
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Lake Erie-04120200, a reservoir in Pennsylvania, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 3 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2016). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (3 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Pennsylvania assesses fishing as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P60
- Assessed size nationally
- P5
- 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.
How Lake Erie-04120200 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: in-state cause rank
Inside Pennsylvania, cause-list rank is the local separator: Lake Erie-04120200 is 17 of 246 indexed units by listed-cause count, toward the top of that state's filed lists.
Every filed use falls short
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, recreation, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Longer than most cause lists
3 listed causes puts this unit above 90% of assessed lake-type records by list length. Treat that as a coding-and-sampling signal: states that split pollutants finely mint longer lists without proving worse water.
Lake Erie-04120200: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Lake Erie-04120200. 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 Lake Erie-04120200 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, Pennsylvania carries 516 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Lake Erie-04120200 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetics | Other | Not Supporting |
| Boating | Recreation | Not Supporting |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pathogens | Boating, Aesthetics | 2010 | TMDL priority: High |
| Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) | Fishing | 2010 | TMDL priority: Medium |
| Mercury | Fishing | 2016 | TMDL priority: Medium |
Probable sources
Pennsylvania 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
Cleanup queue for Lake Erie-04120200
1 listed cause ranked High in the TMDL queue, still without a plan
Pennsylvania ranked Pathogens high in its TMDL development queue, and no cleanup plan is on file for that listing yet. That queue rank is the state's own scheduling signal, not an EPA national rule.
A High ranking names a position in the state's plan-writing queue; it is not a measure of how impaired the water is. How listing and cleanup work.
Scale and rank
Lake Erie-04120200 is one of 516 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Pennsylvania, and one of 246 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 63 assessed acres it ranks 15,507th 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 15,506 lakes with a larger one.
Not yet on record
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 Lake Erie-04120200 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
63 Top 40% larger than 60% 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
3 Longer than most more listed causes than 90% 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 Lake Erie-04120200. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Pennsylvania context
ATTAINS carries 516 lake-type waterbodies in Pennsylvania, 135 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 381 fully supporting. Among the 246 indexed units there, Lake Erie-04120200 ranks 17th by listed-cause count (3 listed causes) and 141st by assessed size among the 246 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (135 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury, which also appears among Pennsylvania's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury). It also lists Pathogens and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), outside that top-five list.
| Other large assessed lakes in Pennsylvania | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Pymatuning Reservoir-05030102001826 Not Supporting | 15,995 |
| Allegheny Reservoir-05010001002698 Not Supporting | 12,211 |
| Raystown Lake-02050303001006 Fully Supporting | 8,127 |
| Lake Clark-02050306012077 Fully Supporting | 8,117 |
| Lake Wallenpaupack-02040103001053 Not Supporting | 5,461 |
| Presque Isle Bay-04120101000933 Not Supporting | 3,655 |
Peers near Lake Erie-04120200's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (63 acres here).
- Adams Lake · 63 acres · OK
- Breakneck Pond · 63 acres · NY
- Horse Pond · 63 acres · MA
- Lake Pahoja · 63 acres · IA
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (3 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 67th St. Beach · 3 causes · IL
- Abiquiu Reservoir · 3 causes · NM
- Absecon Creek (AC Reserviors) (gage to SB) · 3 causes · NJ
- Absecon Creek (below gage) · 3 causes · NJ
What to do with this record
- The listing here is on a fishery use, not on fish consumption, and this state reported no consumption verdict for this reservoir. Your state fish-advisory program is the source for whether the catch is safe to eat. 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 PA-LRP-04120200. 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.