Ennerdale Water

Ennerdale Water is the most westerly lake in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. It is a glacial lake, with a maximum depth of 45 metres (150 ft), and at 700 to 1,500 metres (1/2 mile to a mile) wide and 3.9 kilometres (2½ miles) is one of the smallest lakes in the area. The small village of Ennerdale Bridge lies to the west of the lake.Two pubs and a few houses, it is a typical small Cumbrian village. It is close to the port of Whitehaven, the town of Cleator Moor and the village of Cleator. The lake, owned by United Utilities, is both a reservoir serving over 30,000 customers daily and a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to its lake-shore habitats.

Due to the Ennerdale valley's remote location, the lack of a public road up the valley and its management by the Forestry Commission, the National Trust and United Utilities, Ennerdale Water is not as much visited by hikers, tourists and cyclists as other lakes in the National Park, and thus has not been spoiled by construction, activity on the lake or the trappings of intensive tourism.

In June 2012, it became clear that Ennerdale (specifically the Ennerdale granite to the south of Ennerdale Water) has been identified as a potential site for a Geological Disposal Facility for the UK's high level nuclear waste. Two other sites have also been identified - Eskdale and the Solway Plain. Ennerdale wasn't named by the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) Partnership, rather they referred to the 'granitic rocks forming part of The Lake District Batholith'. These are the Ennerdale and Eskdale granites. This was in (publicly available) document 285 of the West Cumbria MRWS in a report written by Dr Dearlove, the consultant geologist recruited by MRWS.