Missouri reservoir · state assessment record
Lake Tom Sawyer
Assessment decisions reported by Missouri to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b), last assessed in the 2026 reporting cycle.
- 4.00
- Assessed acres
- Reservoir
- Water type
This waterbody in one line
Lake Tom Sawyer, 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 smaller assessed lakes nationally (38,628 lakes with a filed area); its impairment list is among the longest nationally (one listed cause vs 23,610 assessed lakes). Missouri assesses human health protection as not supported; it reported no verdict on fish consumption itself.
- Not Supporting
- overall status
- P9
- Assessed size nationally
- P20
- Shorter cause list
- Not Supporting
- fish-consumption or fishery
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.
Lake Tom Sawyer 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: assessed size
What stands out first is how small the assessed unit is: 4 acres, smaller than 91% of the 38,628 lake-type units carrying an area.
Every filed use falls short
On the uses this filer ruled on, fish consumption, every determination is Not Supporting. That is a use-by-use reading of the filed record, not a single overall lake grade.
Lake Tom Sawyer: Category 5, TMDL still owed
Category 5 is the Integrated Report band where a TMDL (or equivalent) is still expected for Lake Tom Sawyer. 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 Lake Tom Sawyer 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 Tom Sawyer 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Human Health Protection | Fish-consumption or fishery | Not Supporting |
| Irrigation | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Livestock and Wildlife Protection | Aquatic-life or related | Insufficient Information |
| Secondary Contact Recreation | Recreation | Insufficient Information |
| Unclassified with General Criteria Protections | Other | Insufficient Information |
| Warm Water Habitat | Aquatic-life or related | Insufficient Information |
| Whole Body Contact Recreation - Category a | Recreation | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury in Fish Tissue | Human Health Protection | 2016 | TMDL priority: Medium |
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.
- Mercury in Fish Tissue
- Atmospheric Deposition - Toxics (suspected)
Reading the record
Where Lake Tom Sawyer sits among peers
46% of Missouri's lakes assessed this deeply also had no use supported
Missouri ruled definitively on a single designated use at Lake Tom Sawyer and found it not supported. The dataset shows 164 Missouri lakes judged to that same depth.
Missouri's assessed lakes are most often judged on 1 use, 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 | 89 | 18 | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| Mixed | Not possible | 36 | 16 | 10 | 3 |
| None supported | 75 (this record) | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Ringed cell: Lake Tom Sawyer. Source: EPA ATTAINS, Reporting cycles 1987–2026.
Scale and rank
Lake Tom Sawyer 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 4.00 assessed acres it ranks 35,131st 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 35,130 lakes with a larger one.
Still unfiled
The state has not yet filed a definitive recreation verdict and a definitive aquatic-life verdict for this record; those fields populate when it reports them in a future Integrated Report cycle.
In context
Where Lake Tom Sawyer 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
4 Top 91% larger than 9% 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 Tom Sawyer. 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 Tom Sawyer ranks 146th by listed-cause count (one listed cause) and 167th by assessed size among the 170 with an area filed; it sits in the not-supporting set (151 statewide) . Its listed causes include Mercury in Fish Tissue, which also appears among Missouri's most-filed impairment causes (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 Tom Sawyer's size or cause load
Similar assessed acres
Nearest filed extents (4.00 acres here).
- Auburn City Park Lake · 4.00 acres · NE
- Baker River Site 11A Dam · 4.00 acres · NH
- Ballard Pond Mill Dam · 4.00 acres · NH
- Belding · 4.00 acres · VT
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
- The listing here is on a fishery use, not on fish consumption, and this state reported no consumption verdict for this reservoir. Your state fish-advisory program is the source for whether the catch is safe to eat. 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 MO_7035.00. 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.