New York reservoir · state assessment record

Lake George

Assessment decisions reported by New York to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle, a cycle that carries an interim EPA action. Every determination below was filed by EPA rather than by New York.

28,523
Assessed acres
Lake / Reservoir / Pond
Water type
319.5 ft
Water Surface Elevation (provisional)
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This waterbody in one line

Lake George, a reservoir in New York, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2022), a cycle that carries an interim EPA action. 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). A USGS gauge tracks its water surface elevation daily.

Not Supporting
overall status
P100
Assessed size nationally
P20
Shorter cause list

Assessment verdicts are the state agency's decisions as reported to EPA ATTAINS; PlainLakes renders them without modification.

Lake George against the ATTAINS 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 Lake George nationally is assessed size: 28,523 acres, larger than 100% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.

Lake George: Category 5, TMDL still owed

Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Lake George. 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 George 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, New York carries 2,231 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Lake George without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

Interim EPA action. New York decided this in its 2022 Integrated Report, which carries an interim EPA action and has not been finalized. The decisions below are what New York has proposed for that cycle; they can change before EPA takes final action on the cycle.
EPA-filed determinations. EPA, not New York, filed the listed impairment cause. ATTAINS records the agency responsible for each determination and records EPA's for every one on this record; it does not record why. The Clean Water Act provides for EPA to identify waters a state has not identified when EPA does not approve the state's list.
Reporting cycle
2022
Interim EPA action
Listing category
Category 5
Uses with verdicts
0
Definitive use assessments
Sources retrieved
2026-08-17
Portal-wide ATTAINS + NWIS pull

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
Fishing Aquatic-life or related Insufficient Information
Primary Contact Recreation Recreation Insufficient Information
Secondary Contact Recreation Recreation Insufficient Information
Water Supply Drinking-water supply designation Insufficient Information

The record

Listed impairment causes

Causes EPA 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
Sedimentation/Siltation Filed by EPA Water Supply, Secondary Contact Recreation, Fishing, Primary Contact Recreation 2022 TMDL priority: Medium

Reading the record

What Lake George's record holds

Scale and rank

Lake George is one of 2,231 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from New York, and one of 428 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 28,523 assessed acres it ranks 109th 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 108 lakes with a larger one.

Water level

A USGS gauge tracks this reservoir's water surface elevation daily, and the latest reading is 0.07 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 1.1 ft. The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict, a definitive recreation verdict, and a definitive aquatic-life 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 04278000 (Lake George at Rogers Rock Ny), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions.

1.1 ft annual swing
Latest reading
319.5 ft 0.06999999999999318ft vs 30 days earlier
2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Latest reading
319.5 ft
2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
365-day range
1.1 ft
318.9 to 320.0
30-day change
-0.07 ft
vs 30 days earlier
Observations
365
daily mean values, 365 days
319319320320 08-1610-0411-2201-1002-2804-1806-0607-2508-15 320

Source: USGS National Water Information System As of Trailing 365 days, through 2026-08-16

Water level: 365-day record

Subscribe to water level updates for Lake George (RSS)

130 of the 365 daily values in this window (36%) are provisional and subject to USGS revision; USGS has approved this gauge's record through 2026-04-07.

Full gauge record: USGS monitoring location 04278000

In context

Where Lake George 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

28,523 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 Lake George. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

New York context

ATTAINS carries 2,231 lake-type waterbodies in New York, 563 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 79 fully supporting. Among the 428 indexed units there, Lake George ranks 128th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 3rd by assessed size among the 392 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (563 statewide) . Its listed causes (Sedimentation/Siltation) sit outside New York's top-five list, which is led by pH.

Other large assessed lakes in New York Assessed acres
Lake Champlain, Main Lake, Middle Not Supporting 54,972
Oneida Lake Not Supporting 51,269
Seneca Lake, Main Lake, Middle Fully Supporting 40,290
Cayuga Lake, Main Lake, Mid-South Fully Supporting 33,083
Great Sacandaga Lake Not Supporting 24,722
Lake Champlain, Main Lake, North Not Supporting 18,335

Peers near Lake George's size or cause load

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (28,523 acres here).

Similar cause load

Nearest listed-cause counts (1 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.

How peers are picked

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 NY1006-0016. 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.