North Dakota lake · state assessment record

Morrison Lake

A large natural lake in Ramsey County, North Dakota. The assessment record reported by North Dakota to EPA under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b).

2,021
Assessed acres
Lake, Natural
Water type
58.7 ft
Gage Height (provisional)
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This waterbody in one line

Morrison Lake, a lake in North Dakota, has no overall assessment verdict in the state's most recent Integrated Report. By assessed acreage it sits among the largest 5% by assessed acreage nationally (38,628 lakes). A USGS gauge tracks its gage height daily.

Not reported
overall status
P97
Assessed size nationally

Assessment verdicts are the state agency's decisions as reported to EPA ATTAINS; PlainLakes renders them without modification.

Morrison Lake 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

The number that most separates Morrison Lake nationally is assessed size: 2,021 acres, larger than 97% of the 38,628 lake-type units with an area on file.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, North Dakota carries 340 filed lake-type waterbodies in the August 2026 extract, and this page renders the assessment record EPA assigned to Morrison Lake without modification. See our methodology for reporting-unit limits and gauge linking rules.

Limited-coverage record. The reported record for this lake currently lacks a definitive fish-consumption verdict, a definitive recreation verdict, a definitive aquatic-life verdict, among other dimensions. It is shown for completeness; the richer records for North Dakota are on the state page.
Reporting cycle
Not reported
North Dakota Integrated Report
Listing category
Not categorized
No EPA Integrated Report category reported
Uses with verdicts
0
Definitive use assessments
Sources retrieved
2026-08-17
Portal-wide ATTAINS + NWIS pull

The record

Listed impairment causes

No causes are listed because this lake has no overall assessment verdict in the reported cycle. An unassessed waterbody is neither confirmed clean nor confirmed impaired.

Reading the record

What Morrison Lake's record holds

Scale and rank

Morrison Lake is one of 340 lake-type waterbodies reported to EPA from North Dakota. It is not among the 174 whose reported record carries enough populated assessment or gauge data for this site to list and index it. At 2,021 assessed acres it ranks 1,364th 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 1,363 lakes with a larger one.

Which uses were judged

North Dakota filed no use-level rows for this lake and reached no overall verdict, so nothing here was judged either way.

Water level

A USGS gauge tracks this lake's gage height daily, and the latest reading is 1.04 ft below the reading 30 days earlier, against a 365-day observed range of 3.4 ft. The state has not yet filed a definitive fish-consumption verdict, a definitive recreation verdict, a definitive aquatic-life verdict, and 1 other for this record; those fields populate when it reports them in a future Integrated Report cycle.

Water level: 365-day record

Daily gage height values, feet above this gauge’s own local zero, not above sea level, from USGS gauge 05056222 (Morrison Lake Near Webster, Nd), shown weekly. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time conditions.

3.4 ft annual swing
Latest reading
58.7 ft 1.0399999999999991ft vs 30 days earlier
2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
Latest reading
58.7 ft
2026-08-15 · Provisional, subject to USGS revision
365-day range
3.4 ft
57.5 to 60.9
30-day change
-1.04 ft
vs 30 days earlier
Observations
348
daily mean values, 365 days
5758596061 08-1610-0411-2201-1203-0204-2806-2208-1108-15 58.7

Source: USGS National Water Information System As of Trailing 365 days, through 2026-08-16

Water level: 365-day record

Subscribe to water level updates for Morrison Lake (RSS)

39 of the 348 daily values in this window (11%) are provisional and subject to USGS revision; USGS has approved this gauge's record through 2026-07-06.

Full gauge record: USGS monitoring location 05056222

In context

Where Morrison Lake 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

2,021 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

In both charts each bar is a band and taller bars hold more waterbodies; the dashed line and filled bar mark Morrison Lake. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share.

In context

North Dakota context

ATTAINS carries 340 lake-type waterbodies in North Dakota, 52 assessed as not supporting at least one use and 143 fully supporting.

Other large assessed lakes in North Dakota Assessed acres
Lake Sakakawea Not Supporting 318,821
Devils Lake Not Supporting 102,385
Lake Oahe Fully Supporting 68,123
Little Missouri Bay (Lake Sakakawea) Not Supporting 22,719
Long Lake Refuge Not reported 16,990
Lake Audubon Fully Supporting 16,610

Lakes near Morrison Lake's assessed acres

Similar assessed acres

Nearest filed extents (2,021 acres here).

How peers are picked

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 ND-09020201-023-L_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.