The Mississippi River near Lock and Dam No. 3 is the stretch of the river just upstream and downstream of Lock at Dam No. 3, located upstream of Red Wing, MN near Hager City, WI. Lock and Dam No. 3 forms navigational Pool 3 which reaches up to Lock and Dam 2 (also known at the Hastings Dam) near Hastings. This stretch of the river is part of the USACE's 9-Foot Channel Navigation Project. It falls downstream of the seven county metropolitan area and is upstream of Lake Pepin. Additionally, the Cannon River and main outlet of the Vermillion River enter into the Mississippi River a bit below Lock and Dam No. 3.The Mississippi River above Lock and Dam No. 3, River Mile 796.9 is one of the main monitoring stations of the Council's Large Rivers Conventional Monitoring Project. It measures the water quality of the Mississippi River leaving the seven county metropolitan area.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.