The Mississippi River Commission is traveling the Illinois River today getting a glimpse at the waterway's condition.
It's been ten years since the Mississippi River Commission or MRC has inspected the Illinois River.
Engineers and local leaders toured the river on this large tow boat checking ways the area is preserving the river.
Still, the commission's president says there are many issues to look into on the Illinois.
MRC President Michael J. Walsh says, "What I'm looking at is perhaps a hundred year vision. We know some of the issues that are going to happen in the next hundred years, we're going to have power issues, we're going to have water quality, water quantity, we need to work with the agriculturalists and so we need to pull a big group together to try and figure out what we want our river to look like a hundred years from now."
Michael Walsh says towns and businesses along river currently think of it only as a waterway in their area.
Instead, he wants people to get a bigger picture of the river by understanding that it's the third largest watershed in the World.
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