New Jersey multi-water assessment unit · state assessment record
South River (below 39d26m15s)
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.
- 7.51
- Acres of lake water
- Lake
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
South River (below 39d26m15s), a multi-water assessment unit in New Jersey, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 4 listed impairment causes 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 (4 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. New Jersey assesses shellfish harvesting as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P15
- Assessed size nationally
- P3
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- aquatic life
The state agency files this as one assessment unit spanning 7.51 acres of lake water and 24.86 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.
How South River (below 39d26m15s) 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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 4 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 95% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Every filed use falls short
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, 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.
South River (below 39d26m15s): Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for South River (below 39d26m15s). Read the listed causes and any cleanup actions filed beside them before treating the overall status tile as a finished restoration story.
Small assessed unit
7.5 acres puts South River (below 39d26m15s) 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.
Overall status: not supporting
The filer's overall status for South River (below 39d26m15s) 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 South River (below 39d26m15s) 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 | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Not Supporting |
| Public Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Not 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 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| pH | Aquatic Life | 2002 | TMDL priority: Medium |
| Arsenic | Public Water Supply Also assessed as meeting: Aquatic Life | 2012 | TMDL priority: Low |
| Escherichia coli (E. coli) | Primary Contact Recreation | 2012 | TMDL approved |
| Fecal Coliform | Shellfish Harvesting | 2012 | TMDL approved |
Reading the record
What this co-filed unit covers
24.86 miles of stream and river co-filed on this unit
The state agency files this as one assessment unit spanning 7.51 acres of lake water and 24.86 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
South River (below 39d26m15s) 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 7.51 assessed acres it ranks 32,805th 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 32,804 lakes with a larger one.
In context
Where South River (below 39d26m15s) 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
8 Top 85% larger than 15% 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
4 Longer than most more listed causes than 95% 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 South River (below 39d26m15s). 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, South River (below 39d26m15s) ranks 236th by listed-cause count (4 listed causes) and 429th by assessed size among the 588 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (583 statewide) . Its listed causes include Arsenic and Escherichia coli (E. coli), which also appear among New Jersey's most-filed impairment causes (led by Arsenic). It also lists pH and Fecal Coliform, outside that top-five list.
| 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 South River (below 39d26m15s)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (7.51 acres here).
- Delzer Lake · 7.51 acres · WI
- Finger Lakes · 7.51 acres · ID
- Jeanstow Lake · 7.51 acres · WI
- Lake Riley · 7.51 acres · WV
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (4 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- Agency Lake · 4 causes · OR
- Alachua Sink · 4 causes · FL
- Aldrich Pond · 4 causes · MA
- American Falls Reservoir (Snake River) · 4 causes · ID
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 NJ02040302050040-01. 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.