GREON Active Locations

Willard, IL - Mississippi River Backwater

There are no locks and dams on the Mississippi River below Alton, Illinois, but the river is more restricted by a system of levees. This GREON buoy is located in a floodplain lake, created when the 2011 flood caused a failure of the levee in the Len Small District in Alexander Country, IL. The GREON data from this site provides information on this newly created ecosystem, as well as how water quality in this adjacent floodplain compares to water in the main channel measured by a USGS super gage station in Cape Girardeau, MO. The Missouri Department of Conservation has partnered with NGRREC to manage this site. Data from this buoy can also be compared to upstream buoys to evaluate how water quality changes as it flows southerly towards the Gulf of Mexico.