Missouri reservoir · state assessment record
Lake Taneycomo
Assessment decisions reported by Missouri to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.
- 2,119
- Assessed acres
- Reservoir
- Water type
- 701.0 ft
- Water Surface Elevation (provisional)
This waterbody in one line
Lake Taneycomo, a reservoir in Missouri, is assessed as not supporting one or more designated uses, with one listed impairment cause in the state's most recent Integrated Report cycle (2026). By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Aquatic life is assessed as not supporting. Missouri assesses human health protection as supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself. A USGS gauge tracks its water surface elevation daily.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P97
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- 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.
How Lake Taneycomo 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 Lake Taneycomo nationally is assessed size: 2,119 acres, larger than 97% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.
Mixed use determinations
This record splits: Not Supporting on aquatic life, Fully Supporting on fish consumption, recreation. The divergence is inside the designated-use matrix, not a single all-or-nothing label.
Lake Taneycomo: Category 4A reading
Category 4A means a TMDL (or equivalent) is already approved for the impairment on Lake Taneycomo. 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 Lake Taneycomo 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, Missouri carries 623 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Lake Taneycomo without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.
The record
Assessment entries
Fully Supporting and Not Supporting are the state's definitive verdicts; other entries mean the use was not conclusively assessed in this cycle.
| Assessment entry | Group | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Water Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Drinking Water Supply | Drinking-water supply designation | Fully Supporting |
| Human Health Protection | Fish-consumption or fishery | Fully Supporting |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
| Warm Water Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Not Supporting |
| Whole Body Contact Recreation - Category a | Recreation | Fully Supporting |
| Industrial Water Supply | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Irrigation | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Livestock and Wildlife Protection | Aquatic-life or related | Insufficient Information |
| Unclassified with General Criteria Protections | Other | Insufficient Information |
Not every entry above is a designated use: Unclassified with General Criteria Protections is a record that the water carries no classified designated use. The state files it in the ATTAINS use column, so it carries whatever verdict the state recorded against it.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dissolved Oxygen | Warm Water Habitat, Cold Water Habitat | 2026 | TMDL approved |
Probable sources named by the state
Each source below is listed under the cause the state filed it against, and carries the word the state filed with it — confirmed, or suspected.
- Dissolved Oxygen
- Dam Construction (Other Than Upstream Flood Control Projects) (suspected)
Reading the record
Lake Taneycomo: Category 4A reading
4A Category 4A: impaired, TMDL completed
Missouri 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
Lake Taneycomo is one of 623 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from Missouri, and one of 170 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 2,119 assessed acres it ranks 1,309th 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 1,308 lakes with a larger one.
Water level
A USGS gauge tracks this reservoir's water surface elevation daily, and the latest reading is 0.37 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 3.8 ft.
Water level: 365-day record
Daily water surface elevation values, feet above the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88), from USGS gauge 07053600 (Lake Taneycomo at School of the Ozarks, Mo), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions. Each daily value is a single reading taken at 08:00, not a daily mean. It is the only daily statistic USGS files for this gauge.
- Latest reading
- 701.0 ft 0.37000000000000455ft vs 30 days earlier
- 2026-08-16 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Water level: 365-day record
Subscribe to water level updates for Lake Taneycomo (RSS)
104 of the 366 daily values in this window (28%) are provisional and subject to USGS revision; USGS has approved this gauge's record through 2026-05-04.
USGS operates 2 monitoring sites carrying this lake’s name; this record reads site 07053600, the densest of the 2 reporting daily values. The other site is 07053820. Each site measures against its own zero, so their readings are not interchangeable.
USGS monitoring locations on this lake: 07053600 (read here), 07053820
In context
Where Lake Taneycomo 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
2,119 Top 3% larger than 97% 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 Lake Taneycomo. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.
In context
Missouri context
ATTAINS carries 623 lake-type waterbodies in Missouri, 151 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 118 fully supporting. Among the 170 indexed units there, Lake Taneycomo ranks 37th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 12th by assessed size among the 170 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (151 statewide) . Its listed causes (Dissolved Oxygen) sit outside Missouri's top-five list, which is led by Chlorophyll-a.
| Other large assessed lakes in Missouri | Assessed acres |
|---|---|
| Lake of the Ozarks Not Supporting | 59,520 |
| Harry S Truman Reservoir Not Supporting | 55,600 |
| Table Rock Lake Not Supporting | 41,747 |
| Stockton Lake Fully Supporting | 23,680 |
| Mark Twain Lake Not Supporting | 20,100 |
| Bull Shoals Lake Not Supporting | 9,000 |
Peers near Lake Taneycomo's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (2,119 acres here).
- Choke Canyon Reservoir · 2,119 acres · TX
- Tahkenitch Lake · 2,118 acres · OR
- Pine · 2,111 acres · MN
- Lake St. John · 2,126 acres · LA
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
- Assessment verdicts are cycle-based, not real-time. For fish-consumption decisions, your state advisory program is the binding source. Consumption status guide
- Water levels shown are daily snapshots. Seasonal drawdown and datum conventions matter when comparing levels. How to read level data
- 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 MO_7314.00. 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.