Idaho lake · state assessment record
Payette Lake
Assessment decisions reported by Idaho to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2014 reporting cycle.
- 4,987
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
- 6.0 ft
- Gage Height (provisional)
This waterbody in one line
Payette Lake, a lake in Idaho, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2014). 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. A USGS gauge tracks its gage height daily.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P98
- 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 Payette 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 Payette Lake nationally is assessed size: 4,987 acres, larger than 98% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Every filed use falls short
On the uses this filer ruled on, 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.
Payette Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Payette Lake. 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 Payette 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, Idaho carries 630 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Payette 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. Idaho filed its own confidence on the one definitive verdict it rated: Good. That rating is the filer's, in EPA's own field, and EPA publishes no definition of the four words it offers.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Water Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Supporting |
| Salmonid Spawning | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Aesthetic | Other | Not Assessed |
| Agricultural Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Domestic Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Not Assessed |
| Wildlife Habitat | Other | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Primary Contact Recreation, Salmonid Spawning, Cold Water Aquatic Life | 2006 | TMDL priority: Medium |
Reading the record
Where Payette Lake sits among peers
5 of 16 Idaho lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Idaho ruled definitively on 3 designated uses at Payette Lake and found none of them supported. The dataset shows 16 Idaho lakes judged to that same depth.
Idaho's assessed lakes are most often judged on 5 or more uses; this one was judged on 3.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 6 | 25 | 8 | 12 | 147 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| None supported | 17 | 19 | 5 (this record) | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Payette Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Payette Lake is one of 630 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Idaho, and one of 186 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 4,987 assessed acres it ranks 621st 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 620 lakes with a larger one.
Water level
A USGS gauge tracks this lake's gage height daily, and the latest reading is 0.60 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 5.7 ft. The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.
Water level: 365-day record
Daily gage height values, feet above this gauge’s own local zero, not above sea level, from USGS gauge 13238500 (Payette Lake at Mccall Id), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions. Each daily value is a single reading taken at 24:00, not a daily mean. It is the only daily statistic USGS files for this gauge.
- Latest reading
- 6.0 ft 0.5999999999999996ft vs 30 days earlier
- 2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Water level: 365-day record
Subscribe to water level updates for Payette Lake (RSS)
109 of the 365 daily values in this window (30%) are provisional and subject to USGS revision; USGS has approved this gauge's record through 2026-04-28.
Full gauge record: USGS monitoring location 13238500
In context
Where Payette 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
4,987 Top 2% larger than 98% 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 Payette Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Idaho context
ATTAINS carries 630 lake-type waterbodies in Idaho, 51 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 198 fully supporting. Among the 186 indexed units there, Payette Lake ranks 28th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 8th by assessed size among the 186 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (51 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury, which also appears among Idaho's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total).
| Other large assessed lakes in Idaho | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Pend Oreille Lake Not Supporting | 80,829 |
| Bear Lake Not Assessed | 34,454 |
| American Falls Reservoir (Snake River) Not Supporting | 31,724 |
| Cascade Reservoir Not Supporting | 25,040 |
| American Falls Reservoir (Snake River) Tribal Waters Not Assessed | 23,785 |
| Grays Lake Not Assessed | 23,678 |
Peers near Payette Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (4,987 acres here).
- New Lake · 4,981 acres · NC
- International Falcon Reservoir · 4,980 acres · TX
- Seeboomook Lake · 4,999 acres · ME
- Black Warrior River (Warrior Lake) · 4,971 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
- 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 ID17050123SW017L_0L. 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.