Maine lake · state assessment record
West Branch Penobscot River (3) (25,876 acres)
Assessment decisions reported by Maine to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2002 reporting cycle.
- 25,876
- Assessed acres
- Lake, Freshwater
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
West Branch Penobscot River (3), a lake in Maine, is assessed as fully supporting its designated uses, with no impairment causes listed in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2002). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 1% of assessed lakes nationally (38,628 lakes with a filed area); its impairment list is shorter than on half of assessed lakes (0 listed causes). Aquatic life is assessed as fully supporting. Fish consumption is assessed as fully supporting.
- Fully Supporting
- overall status
- P100
- Assessed size nationally
- P51
- 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.
How West Branch Penobscot River (3) 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 West Branch Penobscot River (3) nationally is assessed size: 25,876 acres, larger than 100% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Shorter than most cause lists
Only 0 causes on file, shorter than 51% of assessed lake-type units. Pair the short list with the use matrix: a single Not Supporting use can still be the whole story.
Every filed use clears the bar
The filed use determinations for fish consumption, recreation, 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.
IR category in the supporting band
EPA's Integrated Report category for West Branch Penobscot River (3) is 1. In ATTAINS that band means the assessed uses are supporting (or supporting with other waters in the unit), so the narrative weight shifts to how deep the assessment went and whether monitoring is current, not to a restoration plan.
Overall status: fully supporting
Overall status is Fully Supporting. If an IR category or cause row still appears, it usually reflects a prior listing path or a use the overall rollup does not collapse, read those sections rather than stopping at the tile.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Maine carries 339 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to West Branch Penobscot River (3) 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. Maine filed its own confidence on the 10 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural Supply | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Drinking Water Supply After Disinfection | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish Consumption | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fish and Other Aquatic Life | Aquatic-life or related | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Fishing | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Hydroelectric Power Generation | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Industrial Process and Cooling Water Supply | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Navigation | Other | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Primary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting Filer confidence: Good |
The record
Listed impairment causes
The state's reported assessment lists no impairment causes for this lake.
Reading the record
West Branch Penobscot River (3): Category 1 reading
1 Category 1: all designated uses supported
Maine filed this assessment unit as Category 1: every designated use assessed here was reported as supported. That is the filer's Integrated Report classification, not a PlainLakes score.
Scale and rank
West Branch Penobscot River (3) is one of 339 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Maine, and one of 302 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 25,876 assessed acres it ranks 117th 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 116 lakes with a larger one.
What this record holds
Maine completed an assessment here and listed no impairment cause, so the record holds a verdict and its supporting use rows but no pollutant to track over time.
In context
Where West Branch Penobscot River (3) 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
25,876 Top 1% larger than 99%+ 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
0 Among the shortest cause lists fewer listed causes than 51% 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 West Branch Penobscot River (3). Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Maine context
ATTAINS carries 339 lake-type waterbodies in Maine, 31 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 272 fully supporting. Among the 302 indexed units there, West Branch Penobscot River (3) ranks 38th by listed-cause count (no listed causes) and 7th by assessed size among the 302 with an area filed; it is one of the 272 fully-supporting indexed records in the state .
| Other large assessed lakes in Maine | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Moosehead Lake Fully Supporting | 79,454 |
| Sebago Lake Fully Supporting | 45,624 |
| Spednick Lake Fully Supporting | 35,904 |
| Chesuncook Lake Fully Supporting | 34,926 |
| Mooselookmeguntic Lake Fully Supporting | 32,243 |
| West Grand Lake Fully Supporting | 31,174 |
Peers near West Branch Penobscot River (3)'s size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (25,876 acres here).
- Cherokee Reservoir · 25,964 acres · TN
- East Vermilion · 25,604 acres · MN
- Lake Pepin · 25,503 acres · WI
- Pepin · 25,477 acres · MN
Similar cause load
Nearest listed-cause counts (0 here). Peers already in the acreage column are omitted.
- 31st Street Harbor · 0 causes · IL
- 42nd Avenue East Beach · 0 causes · MN
- 59th Street Harbor · 0 causes · IL
- 657 Dunleavy (Beach) · 0 causes · MI
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 ME0102000109_00L. 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.