The Minnesota River near Fort Snelling is the final stretch of the river before it flows into the Mississippi River. The areas next to this section of the river include parts of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Fort Snelling State Park. Fort Snelling is a historic former military outpost dating back to the 1820's, located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport lies to the northeast of this section of the Minnesota River, and the Seneca Wastewater Treatment Facility is located at the upstream end.The Minnesota River at Fort Snelling, River Mile 3.5 is one of the main monitoring stations of the Council's Large Rivers Conventional Monitoring Program. It measures the water quality of the Minnesota River just before it enters into the Mississippi River. Additionally, it is located just downstream from the Seneca Wastewater Treatment Facility. USGS station 05330920 is located near this water quality monitoring station and measures hydrological data of the river. This station also has automatic monitoring equipment which takes measurements every 15 minutes. This continuous data can be found under the "Time Series" dropdown in the "Data Collected" section located farther down on this webpage.The Minnesota River is a 332 mile long tributary of the Mississippi River which originates from Big Stone Lake near the border of South Dakota and Minnesota. The watershed of the river covers roughly 17,000 square miles. The geology of the watershed is relatively young compared to other areas of Minnesota, and as a result there is a lot of erosion activity in the Minnesota River and its tributaries. Much of the watershed has been converted into cropland to take advantage of the nutrient rich soil in the region.