Quad-City Times: The Upper Mississippi River has been designated the No. 1 “most endangered” river in the United States for 2020 by American Rivers, a nonprofit environmental group based in Washington, D.C. The reason: “increasingly severe flooding fueled by climate change,” according to a news release. The Upper Mississippi is the 1,243 miles of river from Lake Itasca, Minn., to Cairo, Ill. It forms the entire eastern border of Iowa and western border of Illinois. Significantly, the No. 2 most-endangered river on American Rivers’ annual listing is the Lower Missouri, and for the same reason: flooding. The Lower Missouri forms the entire western border of Iowa.