I have canoed the St. Mary's river from Pleasant Mills (an Indiana town just west of the Ohio border) to the Maumee. I frequently bike the river greenway along Fort Wayne's rivers. In my time along the St. Mary's river I have seen that it is disgusting. I am always amazed at the garbage I find in the river. Because of the trash and the Combined Sewer Overflows at Foster Park, I have called the river the St. Mary’s Sewer for the past two years. Sewer is an accurate name. Fort Wayne's latest River Water Quality Report shows very high levels of E. coli in the river. The report lists two sample sites along the St. Mary's. The cleaner of the two sites shows E. coli levels six and a half times the maximum acceptable levels. The E. coli levels in the St. Joseph river are about half the maximum acceptable levels. From my canoe trips, this doesn't surprise me. You don't have to go upstream very far from the confluence of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph to see the difference. The St. Mary's stinks and is full of trash and dead animals. The St. Joseph doesn't look clean, but the smell is gone, the water doesn't look as dirty, and there are live fish. I have heard that the St. Joseph is cleaner than it was a few years ago. I sure hope the St. Mary's gets cleaned up. I can’t believe that I've seen people go swimming in that river.