Assessment Comments

Basis for Assessment

Considered data from 1991 quarterly monitoring station too old to be useful for 305(b) assessments.   In order to provide an assessment for this major interior river in Iowa, information from the DNR publication "Iowa Float Trips" (DNR 1986?: 9-10) was used to assess support of the Class B(WW) aquatic life uses as FST due to the following description: the reach of the Des Moines River in Humboldt County "is very productive from a fisheries aspect.   Numerous riffle areas, three dams, vertical limestone bluffs, coupled with the river's natural meandering through heavily-timbered floodplains, provide excellent game fish habitat and scenic interest unequaled throughout the upper portion of the West Fork [Des Moines River]."