Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources works to ensure the state’s water bodies are healthy for a variety of uses, such as swimming and fishing.  The department has made significant improvements to our state’s water quality.  DNR protects Missouri’s water resources by permitting and inspecting potential sources of pollution, at facilities throughout the state.  They issue permits to regulate wastewater treatment plants, factories and storm water to reduce the impact of pollutants.  They sample streams, lakes and wetlands to determine the health of Missouri’s surface waters.  As a state, we've come a long way cleaning up point source pollution, and DNR is focused on providing funding to cleaning up non-point source pollution.

The diverse Lower Missouri River Watershed includes rural forests, upland agricultural land, bottomland farms, suburban development and urban metropolitan St. Louis.

But it takes more than just government to truly protect the state resources, like water.  Future improvements will require a new approach – one that looks at the whole watershed and all the potential sources of water pollution.  It takes working with other stakeholders within the watershed, it takes working with other agencies, local government, municipalities, counties, and of course, residents. Tracy Haag will present information regarding the department’s state-wide Our Missouri Waters effort and more specifically the department’s watershed focus on the Lower Missouri Watershed.