WATCH: Tipping Point - The Mighty Mississippi | A PBS News Special

The Mississippi River, North America’s largest river system, is under threat.

Air and water pollution, downstream flooding and coastal land loss are among the environmental pressures that are putting the health and future of the waterway — and the communities that depend on it — at risk.

PBS News’ Miles O’Brien will host a live conversation July 16 starting at 7 p.m. EST about these threats and emerging solutions, joined by a series of experts and academics at the University of Minnesota’s historic Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory.

The river, which stretches 2,340 miles from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, provides drinking water to more than 18 million people and discharges more than half a million cubic feet of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 500 million tons of cargo, valued at nearly $100 billion, are transported on the river each year.

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