Delaware reservoir · state assessment record
Trap Pond
Assessment decisions reported by Delaware to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.
- 95
- Assessed acres
- Lake / Reservoir / Pond
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Trap Pond, a reservoir in Delaware, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with 2 listed impairment causes in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2026). By assessed acreage it sits above the national median by assessed acreage (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (2 listed causes vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P69
- Assessed size nationally
- P10
- 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.
Trap Pond 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: cause-list length
The standout filed fact is cause-list length: 2 listed impairment causes, a longer list than 80% of assessed lake-type units (n=23,610). List length tracks how states sample and code, not a severity score.
Every ruled-on use is not supporting
On the uses this filer ruled on, 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.
Trap Pond: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Trap 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 Trap Pond is Not Supporting. That tile summarizes the assessment unit; the designated-use rows and cause list are the evidence behind it.
Large within Delaware
Among Delaware's 46 indexed units with an area, Trap Pond ranks 6 by assessed size, toward the large end of that state file.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Delaware carries 47 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Trap 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.
| Designated use | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fish, Aquatic Life, and Wildlife | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterococcus | Primary Contact Recreation | 1996 | TMDL approved |
| Copper | Fish, Aquatic Life, and Wildlife | 2026 | TMDL priority: Low |
Reading the record
Where Trap Pond sits among peers
49% of Delaware's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Delaware ruled definitively on 2 designated uses at Trap Pond and found none of them supported. The dataset shows 35 Delaware lakes judged to that same depth.
Delaware's assessed lakes are most often judged on 2 uses, as this one was.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All supported | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 12 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| None supported | 5 | 17 (this record) | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Trap Pond. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Trap Pond is one of 47 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Delaware, and one of 46 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 95 assessed acres it ranks 12,142nd 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 12,141 lakes with a larger one.
Not yet on record
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.
In context
Where Trap 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
95 Top 31% larger than 69% 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
2 Longer than most more listed causes than 80% 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 Trap Pond. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Delaware context
ATTAINS carries 47 lake-type waterbodies in Delaware, 40 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 6 fully supporting. Among the 46 indexed units there, Trap Pond ranks 10th by listed-cause count (2 listed causes) and 6th by assessed size among the 46 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (40 statewide) . Its listed causes include Enterococcus and Copper, which also appear among Delaware's most-filed impairment causes (led by Enterococcus).
| Other large assessed lakes in Delaware | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lums Pond Fully Supporting | 198 |
| Red Mill Pond Fully Supporting | 192 |
| Hoopes Reservoir Not Assessed | 188 |
| Noxontown Pond Fully Supporting | 178 |
| Silver Lake Not Supporting | 168 |
| Millsboro Pond Not Supporting | 134 |
Peers near Trap Pond's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (95 acres here).
- Columbia River (Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake) · 95 acres · WA
- Beaver Flow · 95 acres · NY
- Moonan Marsh · 95 acres · MN
- Woodman Pond · 95 acres · NY
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (2 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 12th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 31st St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 49th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
- 57th St. Beach · 2 causes · IL
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 DE050-L07. 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.