New Jersey multi-water assessment unit · state assessment record
Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor
Assessment decisions reported by New Jersey to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle.
- 2.50
- Acres of lake water
- Lake
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor, a multi-water assessment unit in New Jersey, 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 smaller 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). Aquatic life is assessed as fully supporting. New Jersey assesses shellfish harvesting as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P6
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Fully Supporting
- aquatic life
The state agency files this as one assessment unit spanning 2.50 acres of lake water and 14.25 square miles of estuary and 2.80 miles of stream and river. The verdicts and listed causes below are reported for the whole unit, not for the lake water alone. 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.
Where Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor stands in 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 New Jersey, this unit sits toward the short-list end: cause-list rank 574 of 588 indexed units.
Not one verdict, several
This record splits: Not Supporting on fish consumption, Fully Supporting on aquatic life. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Small assessed unit
2.5 acres puts Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor in the lower tercile by assessed area. Small units are often beaches, ponds, or segments, read the water-type and co-filed notes before comparing them to a multi-thousand-acre reservoir.
Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor. 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 Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor 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, New Jersey carries 611 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting |
| Shellfish Harvesting | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Aquatic Life - Trout | Aquatic-life or related | Not Assessed |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Insufficient Information |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
| Public Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not Assessed |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Assessed |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state listed as impairing designated uses of this multi-water assessment unit, with the cycle each was first listed and the Clean Water Act action recorded against it.
| Cause | Affected uses | First listed | Cleanup standing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fecal Coliform | Shellfish Harvesting | 2006 | TMDL approved |
Reading the record
What this co-filed unit covers
14.25 square miles of estuary co-filed on this unit
The state agency files this as one assessment unit spanning 2.50 acres of lake water and 14.25 square miles of estuary and 2.80 miles of stream and river. The verdicts and listed causes below are reported for the whole unit, not for the lake water alone.
This page is about the lake water in the unit; counts and verdicts below cover the whole multi-water assessment unit. How multi-water units are filed.
Scale and rank
Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor is one of 611 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from New Jersey, and one of 588 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 2.50 assessed acres it ranks 36,187th 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 36,186 lakes with a larger one.
Awaiting a filing
The state has not yet filed a definitive recreation verdict for this record; that field populates when it reports it in a future Integrated Report cycle.
In context
Where Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor 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
3 Top 94% larger than 6% 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 Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
New Jersey context
ATTAINS carries 611 lake-type waterbodies in New Jersey, 583 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 21 fully supporting. Among the 588 indexed units there, Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor ranks 574th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 521st by assessed size among the 588 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (583 statewide) . Its listed causes (Fecal Coliform) sit outside New Jersey's top-five list, which is led by Arsenic.
| Other large assessed lakes in New Jersey | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Wanaque Reservior (below Monks gage) Not Supporting | 2,599 |
| Lake Hopatcong Not Supporting | 2,583 |
| Prescott Brook / Round Valley Reservior Not Supporting | 2,297 |
| Merrill Creek Not Supporting | 1,298 |
| Wallkill R / Lake Mohawk(above Sparta Sta) Not Supporting | 975 |
| Wanaque R/Greenwood Lk(aboveMonks gage) Not Supporting | 881 |
Peers near Point Pleasant Canal and Bay Head Harbor's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (2.50 acres here).
- Ashuelot River - Nash Mill Dam · 2.50 acres · NH
- Backbone Lake · 2.50 acres · IA
- Blue Lake · 2.50 acres · ID
- Camp Luther Pond · 2.50 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 multi-water assessment unit. 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 NJBarnegatBay01. 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.