Watkins Mill State Park and Lake of the Ozarks State Park’s Grand Glaize swimming beaches are closed due to water quality issues according to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Results received Aug. 29 showed continued water quality issues at Watkins Mill State Park beach. Staff at Lake of the Ozarks State Park closed Grand Glaize [...]

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is seeking public input on the recreational use of more than 380 Missouri waterways.
Every few years DNR must review state water quality standards. This is required by the federal Clean Water Act.
Streams are ranked by the amount of and what kinds of recreational use they get. For [...]

Rain lets up, sun shines for school field day devoted to water and water quality
By Jo Schaper
After one of the wettest weeks on record in the Shannon and Reynolds County Ozarks, with some students missing two days of school due to flooded roads, Mother Nature put on her finest spring attire for the National Park [...]

According to an AP story reported by www.stltoday.com, the Missouri Senate may take up a bill this week to reinstate numerous water pollution fees which support DNR oversight and enforcement of the Federal Clean Water Act and state regulations to keep rivers, lakes and streams clean.
These fees expired last December when the Senate failed [...]

(The article below by Tamara Whiteside was first printed in the West Plains Quill on Dec. 28, 2010. Traveler gratefully acknowledges permission to pass along to our readers. Copyright West Plains Quill, 2010. All rights reserved.)
Manager says total of 8,000 area acres are home to large organic dairy operation
BY TAMARA WHITESIDE
Quill Staff Writer
What appears [...]

Lake Taneycomo, that excellent cold-water trout fishery has a dark side. The cold water which comes off the bottom of Table Rock Lake is also low in oxygen. Trout need low temps and high dissolved oxygen (DO). Because Lake Taneycomo has too often not met the minimum standard of 6 mg/l DO [...]

When the EPA news release about cleaning up the Mississippi River from North Riverfront Park to the Meramec Confluence appeared in my email, I thought: “What?”
For full disclosure, I was born in South St. Louis about a mile from the Mississippi, lived even closer until we moved to then rural Jefferson County, and [...]