The Lower St. Louis River has been significantly impacted by decades of industrial, commercial, and residential use, prompting its designation as a Great Lakes Area of Concern .  To be removed from the list, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency requires that degraded water quality and related fish and wildlife problems, as defined in Beneficial Use Impairments, be addressed by developing and implementing BUI de-listing targets.  Environmental Contaminants biologists from the Twin Cities Ecological Services Field Office, through the St. Louis River Citizens Action Committee, are helping to develop delisting targets, strategies and actions which will eliminate the causes of these impairments and significantly move the St. Louis River Area of Concern towards delisting.  FWS resource management responsibilities in this 12,000-acre freshwater estuary focus on: migratory bird habitat protection and restoration (with an emphasis on Great Lakes coastal wetland conservation), endangered species recovery (piping plover), and Great Lakes fishery enhancement (lake sturgeon reintroduction).