Alabama reservoir embayment · state assessment record
Little River (Weiss Lake)
Assessment decisions reported by Alabama Department of Environmental Management to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle. The cleanup plan below was established by EPA rather than by Alabama.
- 761
- Assessed acres
- Reservoir Embayment
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Little River (Weiss Lake), a reservoir embayment in Alabama, 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). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 10% 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. Alabama assesses fishing as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P93
- 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 Little River (Weiss 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 Little River (Weiss Lake) nationally is assessed size: 761 acres, larger than 93% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, recreation, aquatic life, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Little River (Weiss Lake): Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Little River (Weiss 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 Little River (Weiss 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, Alabama carries 304 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Little River (Weiss 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Supporting |
| Drinking and Food Processing | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Supporting |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Industrial and Agriculture Uses | Other | Not Supporting |
| Propagation of Fish and Wildlife | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this reservoir embayment, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) | Propagation of Fish and Wildlife; Drinking and Food Processing; Fishing; Contact Recreation; Industrial and Agriculture Uses | 1996 | TMDL established by EPA |
Probable sources named by the state
Each source below is listed under the cause the state filed it against, and carries the word the state filed with it — confirmed, or suspected.
- Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)
- Impacts From Hydrostructure Flow Regulation/Modification (suspected) Municipal Point Source Discharges (suspected) Industrial Point Source Discharge (suspected)
Reading the record
Little River (Weiss Lake): Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Alabama 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
Little River (Weiss Lake) is one of 304 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Alabama, and one of 263 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 761 assessed acres it ranks 2,766th 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 2,765 lakes with a larger one.
In context
Where Little River (Weiss 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
761 Top 7% larger than 93% 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 Little River (Weiss Lake). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Alabama context
ATTAINS carries 304 lake-type waterbodies in Alabama, 143 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 130 fully supporting. Among the 263 indexed units there, Little River (Weiss Lake) ranks 90th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 109th by assessed size among the 263 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (143 statewide) . Its listed causes include Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), which also appears among Alabama's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury).
| Other large assessed lakes in Alabama | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Tennessee River (Lake Guntersville) Fully Supporting | 20,440 |
| Wheeler Lake Not Supporting | 18,705 |
| Tallapoosa River (Lake Martin) Fully Supporting | 15,867 |
| Coosa River (Weiss Lake) Not Supporting | 15,066 |
| Tennessee River (Wheeler Lake) Not Supporting | 13,441 |
| Tennessee River (Wilson Lake) Not Supporting | 13,363 |
Peers near Little River (Weiss Lake)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (761 acres here).
- Merle Collins Lake · 761 acres · CA
- Okemah Lake · 761 acres · OK
- Bluestem Lake · 762 acres · OK
- DeSoto Lake (DeSoto NWR) · 760 acres · NE
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 listing here is on a fishery use, not on fish consumption, and this state reported no consumption verdict for this reservoir embayment. 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 AL03150105-0807-111. 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.