The Mississippi River near Newport is the stretch of the river that runs along the borders of the cities of South St. Paul, Newport, Inver Grove Heights, and St. Paul Park. It is part of the USACE's 9-Foot Channel Navigation Project and lies in Navigation Pool 2. It is also part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. Compared to other sections of the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities, this stretch of the river is located in a more industrial area. It is also located just about three miles downstream from the Metro Wastewater Treatment Facility. Pigs Eye Lake, an important riverine wetland for birds such as herons and egrets, connects to this part of the Mississippi River. Additionally, Battle Creek flows into Pigs Eye Lake, and Fish Creek enters into the Mississippi River right where Pigs Eye Lake also connects to the river.Mississippi River at Newport, River Mile 831 is the main monitoring station in this stretch of the river. It measures the water quality of the Mississippi River that is just a couple miles downstream from the effluent of the large Metro Wastewater Treatment Facility and 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.