The Mississippi River above Lock and Dam No. 2 is stretch of the river just above the Hastings Dam (also known as Lock and Dam No. 2) and downstream from the outlets of Mooers and Spring Lakes, two backwater lakes of the Mississippi River. The Cottage Grove Wastewater Treatment Facility and part of the Spring Lake Regional Park lie near the upstream end of this stretch of the river. It is part of the USACE's 9-Foot Channel Navigation Project and also part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. Lock and Dam No. 2 forms navigation Pool 2, which stretches up to Lock and Dam No. 1 (also known as the Ford Dam) near St. Paul.The main monitoring station on this stretch of the river is the Mississippi River above Lock and Dam No. 2, River Mile 815.6. It measures the water quality of the Mississippi River before the entrance of the St. Croix River. Additionally, this monitoring station is located downstream from the outlets of the Eagles Point and Empire Wastewater Treatment Facilities, as well as downstream from the highly urban areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. In addition to the collection of conventional water samples, automatic monitoring equipment 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. Most of the other monitoring sites within this section of the Mississippi River have only been monitored for special studies.The Mississippi River is one of the world's largest rivers, flowing over 2,300 miles through the center of the United States. It begins at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and ends at the Gulf of Mexico, where pollutants carried by the river contribute to the Gulf's Dead Zone. Millions of people rely on the Mississippi River as a source of drinking water, and the river is also an important waterway for shipment of commodities. The Mississippi River watershed is the 4th largest in the world at about 1.2 million square miles. The section of the watershed in and upstream of the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area has a mix of several types of land including forests, wetlands, agriculture, and developed areas.