The Mississippi River near Grey Cloud Island is a large bend of the river several miles downstream from St. Paul ending at Lock and Dam 2, also known as the Hastings Dam, which forms Pool 2. The river widens at this location allowing the flow of the water to slow down, and there are also several islands and backwater lakes that have formed in the area. The main backwater lakes include River, Baldwin, Spring, and Mooers Lakes. This section of the Mississippi River has historically been one of the most stressed reaches in the metro area. The slower flows and downstream position from St. Paul and the Metro Wastewater Treatment Facility can create conditions which cause environmental stress such as low dissolved oxygen levels in the water, which is harmful to aquatic life. This section of the river also receives water from the Empire Wastewater Treatment Facility in Empire Township, which until 2008 had previously been entering into the Vermillion River. The Mississippi River near Grey Cloud Island lies upstream from Eagles Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in Cottage Grove. It is part of the USACE's 9-Foot Channel Navigation Project and also part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. There are several parks and scientific research areas along the river in this area, such as Grey Cloud Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, Pine Bend Bluffs Scientific and Natural Area, and Spring Lake Park Reserve.Mississippi River at Grey Cloud Island, River Mile 826.7 is the main monitoring stations on this stretch of the river. It measures the water quality of the Mississippi River that is almost 10 miles downstream from the effluent of the large Metro Wastewater Treatment Facility and also downstream from the highly urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 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 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.