Massachusetts lake · state assessment record
Long Pond (102 acres)
Assessment decisions reported by Massachusetts to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2020 reporting cycle.
- 102
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Long Pond, a lake in Massachusetts, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 3 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2020). 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). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P70
- Assessed size nationally
- P5
- 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.
Reading Long Pond's filed record
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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 3 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 90% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
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.
Long Pond: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Long Pond. 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 Long Pond is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Large assessed unit
At 102 acres, Long Pond clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (11,552 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Massachusetts carries 1,191 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Long Pond 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. For the one definitive verdict on this record, Massachusetts filed the assessment basis as Monitored Data. Those are EPA's own words, not PlainLakes' summary of them.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fish, Other Aquatic Life and Wildlife | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Aesthetic | Other | Not Assessed |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Algae | Fish, Other Aquatic Life and Wildlife | 1992 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Dissolved Oxygen | Fish, Other Aquatic Life and Wildlife | 1992 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Phosphorus, Total | Fish, Other Aquatic Life and Wildlife | 1992 | TMDL priority: High |
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.
- Algae
- Unspecified Urban Stormwater (confirmed)
- Dissolved Oxygen
- Unspecified Urban Stormwater (confirmed)
- Phosphorus, Total
- Unspecified Urban Stormwater (confirmed)
Massachusetts also recorded the source of at least one listing here as unknown, including for Algae; Dissolved Oxygen; and Phosphorus, Total.
Reading the record
Cleanup queue for Long Pond
1 listed cause ranked High in the TMDL queue, still without a plan
Massachusetts ranked Phosphorus, Total 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
Long Pond is one of 1,191 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Massachusetts, and one of 678 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 102 assessed acres it ranks 11,553rd 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 11,552 lakes with a larger one.
Open in the register
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.
Why no water-level record
Long Pond has no daily USGS water-level or reservoir-storage series on this page because a site carries the lake’s name, but that name fits more than one assessed waterbody in the state, and PlainLakes declines it rather than guessing. How PlainLakes links gauges.
In context
Where Long Pond 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
102 Top 30% larger than 70% 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 Long Pond. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Massachusetts context
ATTAINS carries 1,191 lake-type waterbodies in Massachusetts, 678 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 40 fully supporting. Among the 678 indexed units there, Long Pond ranks 168th by listed-cause count (3 listed causes) and 175th by assessed size among the 678 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (678 statewide) . Its listed causes include Dissolved Oxygen, which also appears among Massachusetts's most-filed impairment causes (led by Mercury in Fish Tissue). It also lists Algae; and Phosphorus, Total, outside that top-five list.
| Other large assessed lakes in Massachusetts | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Quabbin Reservoir Not Supporting | 24,010 |
| Wachusett Reservoir Not Supporting | 3,962 |
| Assawompset Pond Not Assessed | 2,034 |
| North Watuppa Pond Not Supporting | 1,728 |
| Long Pond Not Supporting | 1,728 |
| South Watuppa Pond Not Supporting | 1,473 |
Peers near Long Pond's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (102 acres here).
- Fishtrap Lake · 102 acres · IN
- Gallimore Lake · 102 acres · IN
- Homer · 102 acres · IL
- Laura S. Walker Lake · 102 acres · GA
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
- 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 MA82072. 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.