The St. Louis Region includes St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties and the City of St. Louis in eastern Missouri. The combination of small land area and large population has had a striking impact on the landscape. It also has the twin aquatic jewels of the lower Meramec and Big rivers. Healthy watersheds with a diversity of native fishes and other animals still exist in parts of the region, but other watersheds are threatened, or in various states of dysfunction.
Clean water is important to everyone and every-thing.
The Conservation Department will open the new century with a new regional water-shed conservation effort focused on priority watersheds. Less pristine and impacted parts of the region, though, are not lost forever-they offer opportunities for restoration and reclamation at the neighborhood, municipal and regional level. The human dimension of the region clearly poses significant challenges to these valuable fish, forest and wildlife resources. Projections indicate that the population of the St. Louis Region will continue to rise over the next several decades. St. Charles and Jefferson counties, already rapidly growing, are anticipated to increase by 80 and 48 percent, respectively.