KHQA was contacted by a local business owner from the Clarence Cannon Dam area who expressed concerns about reports of E. coli closing local beaches.

He says one beach being closed should not reflect on the entire area that remains open.

We will be speaking with him Tuesday, so check this story later and watch KHQA's News at Five, KHQA's Evening News at 6 p.m. and KHQA's Late News at 10 p.m.

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Each week the Missouri Department of Natural Resources takes water samples from lakes across the state to test for the e-coli bacteria.

The Mark Twain State Park beach south of Monroe City is closed because of e-coli.

But that doesn't mean you can't go swimming in the lake.

Kurt Meyer has been involved in his family's general store business for the last 20 years. He's seen quite a bit with the Mark Twain Lake and now he wants people to understand that there are several areas to swim at the lake. So when one beach is closed, there are other places to enjoy.

"The state park beach is a very small beach. It is not really a very heavily used beach at the lake. John F Spalding beach is the beach people really think about when they talk about the beach at Mark Twain Lake. That's the one when people say, oh lets go to the beach that's where they're going to go," said Meyer.

The Missouri DNR operates the Mark Twain State Park near Florida. But it's the U-S Army Corps of Engineers that operate the swimming areas at Spalding Beach and Indian Creek. Meyer says those areas don't have near the levels of bacteria that is sometimes found near the swimming beach at Mark Twain State Park.

"The problem is that you've got this divide between the federal and state government and they really can't talk about each other's facilities in the right way. So you get uncoordinated releases of information that cause the public to become very confused about what's really going on," said Meyer.

So for now, Meyer reminds people to not only check the Missouri DNR website for their weekly water test report.

http://dnr.mo.gov/asp/spbeaches/state-park-beach-status.asp

But to also check the Corps of Engineers website to see if the beaches they run are open to the public.

Meyer says last year, the popular Spalding Beach was closed because of the high water on the lake.

Not because of problems with the e coli bacteria.