Pennsylvania reservoir · state assessment record
Stairway Lake-02040203001777
Assessment decisions reported by Pennsylvania to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2014 reporting cycle. The cleanup plan below was established by EPA rather than by Pennsylvania.
- 181
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Stairway Lake-02040203001777, a reservoir in Pennsylvania, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2014). 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). Pennsylvania assesses fishing as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P80
- 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.
How Stairway Lake-02040203001777 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: assessed size
The number that most separates Stairway Lake-02040203001777 nationally is assessed size: 180.6 acres, larger than 80% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
No ruled-on use clears the bar
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.
Stairway Lake-02040203001777: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Stairway Lake-02040203001777. 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 Stairway Lake-02040203001777 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, Pennsylvania carries 516 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Stairway Lake-02040203001777 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) | Fishing | 1996 | TMDL established by EPA |
Probable sources
Pennsylvania 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
Stairway Lake-02040203001777: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Pennsylvania filed this assessment unit as Category 4A: impaired, with a pollutant-budget TMDL already completed under 303(d). The listing remains an impairment finding; the plan is on file rather than still awaiting write-up.
Scale and rank
Stairway Lake-02040203001777 is one of 516 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Pennsylvania, and one of 246 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 181 assessed acres it ranks 7,822nd 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 7,821 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.
In context
Where Stairway Lake-02040203001777 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
181 Top 20% larger than 80% 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 Stairway Lake-02040203001777. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Pennsylvania context
ATTAINS carries 516 lake-type waterbodies in Pennsylvania, 135 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 381 fully supporting. Among the 246 indexed units there, Stairway Lake-02040203001777 ranks 73rd by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 71st by assessed size among the 246 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (135 statewide) . Its listed causes (Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)) sit outside Pennsylvania's top-five list, which is led by Mercury.
| Other large assessed lakes in Pennsylvania | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Pymatuning Reservoir-05030102001826 Not Supporting | 15,995 |
| Allegheny Reservoir-05010001002698 Not Supporting | 12,211 |
| Raystown Lake-02050303001006 Fully Supporting | 8,127 |
| Lake Clark-02050306012077 Fully Supporting | 8,117 |
| Lake Wallenpaupack-02040103001053 Not Supporting | 5,461 |
| Presque Isle Bay-04120101000933 Not Supporting | 3,655 |
Peers near Stairway Lake-02040203001777's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (181 acres here).
- Cincoe Lake · 181 acres · WI
- Big Diamond Pond · 181 acres · NH
- Spider Lake · 181 acres · WI
- Lake Granbury · 181 acres · TX
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 PA-LRP-02040203001777. 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.