Some of these decisions are EPA's. 4 of these 125 records carry a Clean Water Act cleanup plan EPA established rather than Georgia. They are counted in every figure on this page, and each record page names which.
State water-quality picture · #38 by reported lake-type waterbodies
Georgia lakes and reservoirs
Every figure on this page is computed from the assessment decisions Georgia reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b) (reporting cycles 1996–2026), plus daily water-level observations from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- 125
- Reported waterbodies
- 47
- Not supporting a use
- Not reported
- Fish use assessments
- 0
- Gauged lakes
Georgia in one line
125 lake-type waterbodies in Georgia are reported to EPA ATTAINS across reporting cycles 1996–2026: 47 assessed as not supporting at least one designated use, 72 fully supporting, and 6 without a definitive overall verdict. The most-listed impairment cause is PCBs in Fish Tissue, on 24 waterbodies.
- 125
- reported waterbodies
- 47
- not supporting a use
- 72
- fully supporting
- 39%
- of definitive verdicts impaired
An unassessed waterbody is neither confirmed clean nor confirmed impaired; states assess on multi-year cycles.
Georgia's smaller reported lake-type inventory
At 125 units, Georgia is in the lowest third of state lake-type registers. The charts below describe that compact filing set, not a national-scale inventory.
Data updated 2026-08-17
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Georgia reported 125 lake-type waterbodies in Georgia in the August 2026 extract. See our methodology for filer attribution and multi-year reporting cycles.
Overall-status split on Georgia's compact register
Every reported lake-type unit in this smaller Georgia filing set falls into exactly one overall-status bucket. The bar partitions 125 units; cause and gauge panels below stay separate.
Most-listed impairment causes in Georgia
Waterbodies carrying each listed cause, most first
- PCBs in Fish Tissue
PCBs in Fish Tissue
24 waterbodies
- Chlorophyll-a
Chlorophyll-a
17 waterbodies
- Mercury in Fish Tissue 7
Mercury in Fish Tissue
7 waterbodies
- Thallium in Fish Tissue 7
Thallium in Fish Tissue
7 waterbodies
- Escherichia coli (E. coli) 4
Escherichia coli (E. coli)
4 waterbodies
What this shows PCBs in Fish Tissue is the most-listed impairment cause in Georgia, on 24 of the lake-type waterbodies reported there.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
Georgia: 39% of ruled verdicts are not-supporting, against a national share of 53%, 1.4× below the national rate.
Reporting practice
Nearly all of Georgia's inventory carries a definitive verdict
Each reporting authority decides how much of the water it files to EPA it actually assesses in a cycle. That decision sets the denominator behind every count on this page.
Georgia holds the 38th-largest reported lake-type inventory in the country, 125 assessment units, carrying a definitive verdict on 95.2% of it. The counts above describe the 119 units carrying a verdict, not all 125 reported. Georgia has also retired 8 lake-type assessment units, superseded filings that are kept on the site but not counted here.
The states reporting at the nearest rates are South Dakota (95.4%) and Utah (93.7%).
Assessing more of an inventory is a reporting choice, set by cycle length, monitoring budget and how finely a state splits its waters into units. It is not a measure of water quality, and it is why a raw count from one state does not sit beside a raw count from another. How assessment coverage varies.
Georgia against every comparable state
Share of reported lake-type waterbodies carrying a definitive verdict
95.2% 9th of 47 higher than 38 of 47 states
the 47 comparable states, by definitive-verdict share
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026
Each bar counts states whose definitive-verdict share falls in that 10-point band. The 47 states shown are those reporting at least 25 lake-type units; a share off a smaller inventory is precision the data does not have.
By size
Largest assessed lakes in Georgia
By assessed acreage as reported in ATTAINS. Acreage is the assessed unit's size, which can differ from a lake's full surface area.
| # | Waterbody | Assessed acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Clarks Hill Lake Fully Supporting | 69,999 |
| 2 | Hartwell Lake Not Supporting | 55,950 |
| 3 | Walter F. George Lake Assessment unit GAR031300031304 Not Supporting | 29,890 |
| 4 | Richard B. Russell Lake Not Supporting | 26,650 |
| 5 | Seminole Lake Fully Supporting | 16,924 |
| 6 | Walter F. George Lake Assessment unit GAR031300031601 Not Supporting | 16,863 |
| 7 | Oconee Lake Fully Supporting | 13,026 |
| 8 | Lanier Lake Flowery Branch Not Supporting | 10,102 |
| 9 | West Point Lake Chattahoochee River Arm Not Supporting | 10,078 |
| 10 | West Point Lake Dam Pool Not Supporting | 10,033 |
| 11 | Blackshear Lake Fully Supporting | 8,518 |
| 12 | Lanier Lake Dam Pool Not Supporting | 7,245 |
By cause count
Most-listed waterbodies in Georgia
Waterbodies carrying the most listed impairment causes among the lake-type units reported by Georgia.
| # | Waterbody | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allatoona Lake Little River Embayment Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | Allatoona Lake Mid Lake Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | Allatoona Lake Dam Pool Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | Allatoona Lake Allatoona Creek Arm Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | Allatoona Lake Etowah River Arm Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | Oliver Lake Not Supporting | 3 |
| 1 | West Point Lake Not Supporting | 3 |
| 8 | Jackson Lake Not Supporting | 2 |
| 8 | Lanier Lake Flowery Branch Not Supporting | 2 |
| 8 | Lanier Lake Bolling Bridge Not Supporting | 2 |
Every row in this table ties with at least one other on the ranked value: 7 at 3 (rank 1), 3 at 2 (rank 8). Tied rows share a rank and are listed in no meaningful order; where a tie reaches the top the medal is shared, because nothing separates those rows.
States near Georgia's lighter not-supporting load
Two EPA ATTAINS peer sets outside Georgia. The reporting-practice chart above stays on definitive-verdict share; these neighborhoods highlight register-size and not-supporting peers while Georgia's ruled impairment share sits in the lowest third.
States with a similar reported inventory
Nearest states by lake-type units on the register (125 here).
- Tennessee · 117 units · 8 off
- Mississippi · 114 units · 11 off
- Kentucky · 141 units · 16 off
- Utah · 143 units · 18 off
Comparable not-supporting counts
Nearest states by units assessed not supporting a use (47 here). Inventory peers above are omitted.
- New Mexico · 46 not supporting · 1 off
- Connecticut · 44 not supporting · 3 off
- West Virginia · 44 not supporting · 3 off
- Idaho · 51 not supporting · 4 off
Peers are nearest-neighbor matches on EPA ATTAINS register size and not-supporting counts among states with at least 25 reported units. Impairment peers skip states already listed in the inventory column so the two link sets stay distinct.
Using this state picture
- Comparisons across states hold on shares, not counts: 95.2% of the inventory reported from Georgia carries a definitive verdict, 9th of 47 comparable states. National rankings
- Fish-consumption verdicts here are assessment decisions. Species-level meal advice comes from the state fish-advisory program. Consumption guide
- Browse every named Georgia waterbody with a populated record. Browse waterbodies
PlainLakes renders state assessment decisions and federal gauge observations without modification.
Figures on this page are computed from the assessment decisions Georgia reported to EPA's ATTAINS system and from USGS National Water Information System daily values, no number is typed in by an editor. State counts aggregate every lake-type assessment unit reported by Georgia, including unnamed units that never receive their own page. 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.