Illinois lake · state assessment record
Sahara
Assessment decisions reported by Illinois to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2018 reporting cycle.
- 209
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
- Eutrophic
- Reported trophic class
This waterbody in one line
Sahara, a lake in Illinois, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2018). 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). Aquatic life is assessed as fully supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P82
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Fully 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.
Where Sahara 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: monitoring lag
The signature tension is currency: the reporting cycle is 2018 while monitoring evidence runs through 2012, a 6-year gap. Cycle year and last-monitored year move independently in ATTAINS; this page shows both.
Sahara: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Sahara. Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Every filed use clears the bar
The filed use determinations for aquatic life are all Fully Supporting. Where an overall IR category still flags the unit, look at the cause list and report standing rather than treating the use row as empty.
Large assessed unit
At 209 acres, Sahara clears the upper tercile of assessed lake-type units with an area on file (6,937 still larger). Size comparisons use the portal's deduplicated lake ranking population, not raw ATTAINS row counts.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for Sahara 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, Illinois carries 783 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Sahara 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. Monitoring behind at least one of these designated-use verdicts ran through 2012, as Illinois filed it. Illinois filed its own confidence on the 2 definitive verdicts 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetic Quality | Other | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Assessed |
| Primary Contact | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phosphorus, Total | Aesthetic Quality | 2016 | TMDL priority: Medium |
Reading the record
How current is Sahara's evidence?
6 years between the 2018 reporting cycle and monitoring through 2012
Monitoring behind at least one of these designated-use verdicts ran through 2012, as Illinois filed it.
The cycle is when the state reported; the monitoring year, where filed, is when it measured. How to read assessment currency.
Scale and rank
Sahara is one of 783 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Illinois, and one of 439 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 209 assessed acres it ranks 6,938th 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 6,937 lakes with a larger one.
Not yet on record
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.
Reported trophic class
Eutrophic is the trophic class the filing agency reported to EPA ATTAINS for this assessment unit. It describes nutrient enrichment, not whether the water is safe, and it is not a PlainLakes inference. What the trophic scale measures.
In context
Where Sahara 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
209 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 Sahara. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Illinois context
ATTAINS carries 783 lake-type waterbodies in Illinois, 434 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 63 fully supporting. Among the 439 indexed units there, Sahara ranks 360th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 88th by assessed size among the 388 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (434 statewide) . Its listed causes include Phosphorus, Total, which also appears among Illinois's most-filed impairment causes (led by Phosphorus, Total).
| Other large assessed lakes in Illinois | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake Michigan Nearshore Not Supporting | 125,440 |
| Carlyle Not Supporting | 24,580 |
| Rend Not Supporting | 18,900 |
| Shelbyville Not Supporting | 11,000 |
| Crab Orchard Not Supporting | 6,965 |
| Clinton Not Supporting | 4,895 |
Peers near Sahara's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (209 acres here).
- Brooks Lake · 209 acres · WY
- Fourmile Lake · 209 acres · IA
- Lake Rohunta · 209 acres · MA
- Louise · 209 acres · MN
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
- 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 IL_RAJ. 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.