Ask Lark Weller, a community planner with the National Park Service’s Mississippi National River and Recreation area, the most common question she gets about the Mississippi River and her answer is quick. “Is it safe to swim in the river?” Trevor Russell, watershed program director with Friends of the Mississippi River chimes in with another one, “Is it safe to eat fish from the river?” After struggling for years with how to answer these and other questions posed by the public, the National Park Service and Friends of the Mississippi finally decided to collaborate on a recently released report titled State of the River: Water Quality and River Health in the Metro Mississippi River. – Keep reading…
