Washington reservoir · state assessment record
Riffe Lake (211 acres)
Assessment decisions reported by Washington to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2022 reporting cycle.
- 211
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Riffe Lake, a reservoir in Washington, 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 in the upper quartile by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Washington assesses harvesting as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P82
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- fish-consumption or fishery
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.
Riffe Lake 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 Riffe Lake nationally is assessed size: 210.9 acres, larger than 82% 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, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Riffe Lake: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Riffe 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 Riffe 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, Washington carries 832 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Riffe 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Harvesting | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
The record
Listed impairment causes
Causes the state 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Methylmercury in Fish Tissue | Harvesting | 2018 | TMDL priority: Low |
Reading the record
Where Riffe Lake sits among peers
272 of 272 Washington lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported (every lake judged to this depth, so the outcome does not set this record apart)
Washington ruled definitively on a single designated use at Riffe Lake and found it not supported. The dataset shows 272 Washington lakes judged to that same depth.
Washington's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use, as this one was.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| None supported | 272 (this record) | 89 | 22 | 8 | 2 |
Ringed cell: Riffe Lake. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Riffe Lake is one of 832 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Washington, and one of 385 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 211 assessed acres it ranks 6,902nd 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 6,901 lakes with a larger one.
Still unfiled
The state has not yet filed 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.
Why no water-level record
Riffe Lake 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 Riffe 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
211 Top 18% larger than 82% 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 Riffe Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Washington context
ATTAINS carries 832 lake-type waterbodies in Washington, 393 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 0 fully supporting. Among the 385 indexed units there, Riffe Lake ranks 159th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 60th by assessed size among the 385 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (393 statewide) . Its listed causes include Methylmercury in Fish Tissue, which also appears among Washington's most-filed impairment causes (led by Non-Native Aquatic Plants).
| Other large assessed lakes in Washington | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Bumping Lake Not Assessed | 1,354 |
| Sullivan Lake Not Supporting | 1,298 |
| Deer Lake Not Supporting | 1,146 |
| Loon Lake Not Supporting | 1,094 |
| American Lake Not Supporting | 1,092 |
| Newman Lake Not Supporting | 1,091 |
Peers near Riffe Lake's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (211 acres here).
- Upper Old Hickory Reservoir · 211 acres · TN
- Stay · 211 acres · MN
- Bass Lake · 211 acres · IN
- Borden Brook Reservoir · 211 acres · MA
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. 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 WA46122E1I9_01_01. 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.