Rhode Island lake · state assessment record
Saugatucket Pond
Assessment decisions reported by Rhode Island to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2024 reporting cycle.
- 41
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Saugatucket Pond, a lake in Rhode Island, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2024). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (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.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P50
- 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.
Where Saugatucket Pond 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 Rhode Island, cause-list rank 95 of 126 is mid-pack, the state peer table is not driven by an extreme list length here.
The uses disagree
This record splits: Not Supporting on aquatic life, Fully Supporting on recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Saugatucket Pond: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Saugatucket 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 Saugatucket Pond is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Mid-pack inside Rhode Island
Size rank 73 of 126 inside Rhode Island is mid-pack; the national percentile is the better scale comparison for this unit.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Rhode Island carries 233 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Saugatucket 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. Rhode Island filed its own confidence on the 3 definitive verdicts it rated: Good and Excellent. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fish and Wildlife Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting Filer confidence: Good on other aquatic life indicators; Excellent on physical/chemical |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Excellent |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Excellent |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | 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 | Fish and Wildlife Habitat | 1998 | None reported |
Probable sources
Rhode Island listed the source of the impairment as unknown. That is the state's own filed value, not a gap in this record: the cause has been identified, the origin has not.
Reading the record
Where Saugatucket Pond sits among peers
62% of Rhode Island's lakes assessed this deeply also came out mixed
Rhode Island ruled definitively on 3 designated uses at Saugatucket Pond and found 1 of 3 not supported. The dataset shows 26 Rhode Island lakes judged to that same depth.
Rhode Island's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use; this one was judged on 3.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 7 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 3 | 16 (this record) | 34 | 1 |
| None supported | 36 | 23 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Saugatucket Pond. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Saugatucket Pond is one of 233 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Rhode Island, and one of 126 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 41 assessed acres it ranks 19,440th 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 19,439 lakes with a larger one.
Still unfiled
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.
Reported trophic class
Rhode Island carried the trophic field for this assessment unit and filed it as unclassified, which records that no class was determined rather than that the water is unenriched. What the trophic scale measures.
In context
Where Saugatucket 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
41 Top 50% larger than 50% 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 Saugatucket Pond. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Rhode Island context
ATTAINS carries 233 lake-type waterbodies in Rhode Island, 119 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 21 fully supporting. Among the 126 indexed units there, Saugatucket Pond ranks 95th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 73rd by assessed size among the 126 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (119 statewide) . Its listed causes include Phosphorus, Total, which also appears among Rhode Island's most-filed impairment causes (led by Non-Native Aquatic Plants).
| Other large assessed lakes in Rhode Island | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Scituate Reservoir Fully Supporting | 3,277 |
| Worden Pond Not Supporting | 1,051 |
| Flat River Reservoir (Johnson Pond) Not Supporting | 647 |
| Watchaug Pond Not Supporting | 568 |
| Stafford Pond Not Supporting | 480 |
| Watson Reservoir Not Supporting | 371 |
Peers near Saugatucket Pond's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (41 acres here).
- Nahimana · 41 acres · MN
- Mooreton Pond · 41 acres · ND
- Wintergreen Lake · 41 acres · WI
- Thorn Run Reservoir-05030105001152 · 41 acres · PA
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 RI0010045L-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.