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Pack and Paddle |
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CURRENTS
By Stewart Noland
I returned home from the Spring Ozark Society meeting on Sunday
afternoon April 22 and checked my American Rivers calendar to see what I had planned for
the coming week.
I immediately noticed that on April 22, 1992, eight Arkansas
rivers were designated as "national wild and scenic rivers." It was a fitting
reminder on Earth Day of a fun weekend at Buffalo Point on America's first "national
river," the Buffalo River of Arkansas.
Since Dr. Neil Compton's death, numerous members have asked me
what the Ozark Society planned to do to commemorate our founding president's numerous
contributions to the growth of the Ozark Society.
After considering several options, the Ozark Society Board has
decided to establish an academic scholarship in his name at the University of Arkansas at
Fayetteville, Dr. Compton's alma mater.
The scholarship will be for a senior or graduate level student
studying a natural science (Compton held degrees in geology and botany as well as
medicine).
University of Arkansas scholarship standards require a minimum
$25,000 endowment for the scholarship. We plan to start a special account within the Ozark
Society foundation to receive funds for the scholarship until a minimum of $25,000 is
accumulated, at which time the sum will be transferred to the University of Arkansas.
Ellen Compton, Dr. Compton's daughter and Ozark Society Archival
Chair, is very pleased with the decision to establish the scholarship.
Persons who want to honor Neil by participating can make a
tax deductible donation to the Dr. Compton Scholarship Fund by sending your check to the
Ozark Society foundation, P O Box 3503, Little Rock, AR 72203.
I will report in future columns about our progress toward the
$25,000 minimum goal.
THE BAYOU COUNTRY CALLS THIS FALL!
Chairman Clay Peninger and his ever-active Bayou Chapter has invited all of us hillbillies
down to Lake Bistineau State Park on Oct. 13-14 for the annual fall meeting. This
will be a historic meeting because it will be the first ever Ozark Society annual meeting
held in the great state of Louisiana and our friends in the Bayou country are laying out
the welcome mat for us!
Here's what you need to know to attend the fall meeting.
Lake Bistineau State Park is located in northeast Louisiana east of Shreveport and a
little south and west of Minden. The park is south of Interstate 20 about 16 miles. Clay
advises that we take Exit 33 off Interstate 20 and follow the signs. There are several
turns and the first one is almost immediately after the exit.
Clay says they have reserved the group camp in Area l of the park for Friday and Saturday
nights. The camp has a central dining hall with a very complete kitchen. There are 20
cabins with 4 sets of bunk beds in each (8 beds). The
cabins are heated and air conditioned, but have no bathrooms or running water. You will
need to provide your own linens, pillows, etc. There is a central bathhouse, which you
will find quite nice.
The Society also has received permission for us to tent camp in this area, if you prefer.
If you have 8 people wishing to share a cabin, Clay will be glad to put your name on one.
Also, for those wanting more luxury, there are excellent cabins about a mile from the
group camp that are available for $65 per night. Cabin reservations can be made by
calling1 -877-226-7652. This same number will also allow you to reserve RV campsites for
$12 per night.
Instead of the usual potluck, the Bayou Chapter will provide the Saturday evening meal.
The menu will include Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie and File Gumbo, followed by some Cajun
singing and dancing. Veteran members will remember when the Bayou Chapter would arrive at
our Lake Sylvia campouts in the Ouachitas, bringing with them all the good food that
Louisiana is famous for. Plan now, don't miss it!
Lake Bistineau State Park has numerous hiking trails to explore and canoe trails that
snake through moss-draped bayous. It all sounds like fun!
Dutch Oven Addicts are invited to compete in the usual hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners
Dutch Oven Cook-off that Saturday. Stewart Noland's championship title is up for grabs
again! Sunday morning we will have a pancake breakfast. A registration fee of $10 per
person will cover these meals.
What is there to do besides attend to business, feast and frolic? Clay says there are
several trails to explore. There is a 10-mile mountain bike trail; a short nature trail;
and several marked canoe trails to explore on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Remember --
leave the gators alone!
Saturday night's musical entertainment will be provided by Monty and Marsha Brown.
Their current CD is "The Dancing Cajun." The Heart of Dixie Cloggers also will
be there to show us mountain folk how it's done down on the bayous.
"We look forward to seeing all of out Ozark Society friends at Lake Bistineau,"
Clay said. For more information, contact Clay Peninger by phone at (318) 929-4096 or
via e-mail at CLAYKAR@AOL.COM. Clay is sending Lake
Bistineau brochures to all chapter chairmen.
CONSERVATION OBSERVATIONS
By Paul Means
In the last year of the Clinton Administration, a lot of good
things happened for the environment and those of us who like natural areas. Air quality
standards were strengthened and large tracts of federal land were protected from mining
and drilling.
Now we are only five months into the Bush Administration, and all
this is being reversed. If we attribute this change to individual Presidents and politics,
we are deluding ourselves.
The electricity crisis in California gives an insight into this
sudden change of events. They stopped building hydroelectric dams on rivers in California,
and instead looked to the system of big dams in Oregon and Washington for power. They quit
building new power plants and instead bought power from Utah, Montana, and Nevada. No new
power plants have been built in California in something like 20 years. Instead of finding
ways to make electricity and protect the environment at the same time, California just
shifted the negative impact to other states. This was a pretty painless approach as long
as money was no object.
Then the dot com economy went bust in 2000 at the same time
electricity prices went up. Suddenly, the good life was interrupted by high electric bills
and rolling blackouts. California quickly said the hell with the environment, let's build
dams and power plants as fast as we can. The three-year process of environmental review
and permitting for a new power plant in California is now three months. The State
Government is actively
encouraging the building of more dams.
It is not President Bush who is driving the retreat from environmental
protection; it is a large number of Americans who are most upset at any disruption of
their "have it all lifestyle."
The root cause may not be President Bush, but rather our
lifestyle. We are consuming in quantities that are beginning to exceed the carrying
capacity of our land. Next time you go to a spring or fall Ozark Society meeting, stop and
take a look around. We pull up in enormous FWD vehicles that disgorge mounds of chairs,
tables, tents, cooking gear, technical clothing and doo-dads galore.
Compare this to the first meetings in early days of the Ozark
Society with a family car, simple tent, small campfire, and a casserole for the potluck.
(Ken Smith still sets an example of the simple approach to
attending an Ozark Society meeting.) It is not possible to keep consuming exponentially
more and more and at the same time expect no negative environmental impacts.
President Bush and the big energy companies are not out to rape
the land. They are simply responding to the demands of Americans for more and more energy
at cheap prices. After all, if we consumed a lot less there would be no need to drill more
wells in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and mine coal in wilderness and national
parks.
The day is fast approaching when each of us will have to make
some hard choices. The real question is, how will those 281,421,906 choices affect the
future of our nation and our land?
THE UNEASY CHAIR
By John Heuston
Communications Chairman
Big Trouble in Trout Territory!
The last thing the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers need is another hot controversy that will
put them back in the media spotlight. After all, they just wiggled through the humiliation
of being spanked (lightly) by the Pentagon for manipulating a study to justify
billion-dollar navigation projects on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers; funding for
their
controversial Arkansas Grand Prairie Irrigation Project study was both dissed by President
Bush and nixed in the House; and the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service has serious
environmental concerns over their grandiose proposal to ditch and channelize much of
Southeast Arkansas and a portion of North Louisiana with the Beouf-Tensas Basin Irrigation
project.
This is all bad enough. But this time the Corps has dared touch the current "third
rail" of Arkansas environmental politics they've angered both local residents and
legions of visiting trout fishermen who worship the upper White and North Fork rivers.
Worse, they've made river guide John Gulley and his friends and customers mad. That was a
BIG mistake.
"I've been guiding on these rivers for 29 years," Gulley said. "I'm out on
them almost every day. I keep a keen eye because everything that affects the river affects
the fishing. Over the past few years, I've noticed an alarming trend that is getting
worse. As private and commercial development has increased, the damage to these precious
rivers and wildlife habitats is increasing as well. This includes erosion, siltation, the
demise of sowbugs and aquatic vegetation, and inappropriate riparian destruction and
development. Some people just don't know better. Other people; I sometimes wonder if they
really care."
Gulley and his friends decided something had to be done to protect these rivers from
growing abuse and unwise development. So, they formed an organization called "Friends
of the North Fork and White Rivers," and Gulley is their leader. They have their own
Web Site and it's a dandy: www.friendsofthenorthforkandwhiterivers.com.
A realist, Gulley accepts the fact that "People naturally want to live on these
rivers, so I don't believe anything will stop construction along its banks. However, our
rivers belong to ALL the people of the United States; ALL its citizens; not just a few.
Our rivers are public property and are under the care and protection of the United State
Army through the Corps of Engineers. These are YOUR rivers, YOUR army and YOUR tax
dollars."
As a former resident of rural Baxter County and a long-time member of a hunting club in
Izard County near the White River, your editor is familiar with the haphazard development
frenzy that Gulley describes. It gets worse every year as refugees from the Delta and
elsewhere flee to the Ozark hills.
Eventually, floating down the White River will be about as spiritually uplifting as
drifting through somebody's endless back yard, or worse, an industrial plant site with
faulty pollution control.
Gulley and his growing number of outraged associates do not feel the Corps is taking their
stewardship responsibilities seriously.
"What I want you to know is that your rivers are NOT being protected," he
explains on their web page." In fact, just the opposite is happening. Changes that
affect the rivers are being made almost every day without any permits at all. Permits are
being issued "after the fact." Permits are being issued for projects that are
actually harmful to the interest of the public, benefiting no one but the private parties
involved. This is all happening without Public Hearings!" My, does that sound
familiar.
Three issues have come to the forefront recently to trigger pent-up citizen outrage among
residents of the White and North Fork rivers region: (1) the McCumber Dock issue on the
North Fork River; (2) the Landers Island subdivision issue on White River; and (3)
extensive grading below the high water mark at Steamboat Shoals, and other work that is
being done there without a Corps' permit or unapproved alterations to a Corps' permit.
Resort owner Steve M. McCumber originally sought a permit to construct a boat dock, and to
dredge gravel, on a portion of the "right descending bank" of the North Fork
River near its confluence with the White River at Norfork. Remember, the North Fork River
below Norfork Dam is only slightly more that 4 miles long, yet is rated as one of the top
trophy trout fishing waters in the nation! Fisherman argued that this large boat dock near
the river's mouth would make the area dangerous, remove valuable fishing territory, and
"totally alter the esthetics of the North Fork River, the crown jewel of Arkansas
tail waters, forever."
McCumber has since amended his Application No. 15118 to eliminate all dredging, reduced
the size of the proposed dock from 170 feet to 88 feet, and relocated the project
approximately 300 feet upstream, according to the Corps. Still, it's another dock in an
area that doesn't need any more.
However, this application has triggered an appeal for public hearings and perhaps
even a Congressional Hearing. Irate citizens are demanding that the Corps quit coddling
developers and start paying serious attention to its permit applications on the rivers and
the impact they have on esthetics, public health, the environment, and archeological sites
and historic properties. The historic Wolf House, considered the oldest two-story hewn-log
public courthouse building still standing in Arkansas, is within sight of the mouth of the
North Fork River. We don't need more clutter there. The public comment period on
McCumber's application expires on July 27.
The Landers Island issue is another one that should be of concern to canoeists and river
floaters of all types. Landers Island is a 3/4-mile-long island on the White River located
directly across from the AG&FC Mt. Olive access landing, about 3 1/2 miles upstream
from the Highway 9 Bridge at Allison in Stone County. A wide tree-covered channel 150-feet
in width runs the length of the west side of the island. In the l970s a Corps permit
allowed a low-water bridge to be built across this channel! Worse, a few months ago a
developer was granted an amended permit to build a much larger bridge in order to create a
housing development on the island!
The new gravel bridge structure is 10-feet high and has blocked all public access
through the channel, as there is no way past this bridge! Isn't that just lovely?
Incredible!
For many years your editor, a former resident of rural Baxter County, has belonged to a
hunting camp near this area of White River in Izard County. Many of our members grew up in
the upper White River country and still live there. They have seen Landers Island flooded
on a regular basis. Gulley and friends say that current plans for septic systems to handle
human waste for the Landers Island housing development poses an almost certain threat of
sewage leaks into White River when the inevitable floods come. Floods? Yes, the high dams
don't stop below-dam rises! Bank erosion will be another problem. What on earth was the
Corps' thinking when they granted a permit for this project? Maybe that's the problem
they were too busy backslapping to think.
As this is written, the Corps has scheduled a public workshop for July 31 in the Norfork
High School cafeteria to discuss the Corps' Regulatory Program or lack of one. They
also want to gather "public input on regulatory matters." You can oblige them by
dropping in at any time between the hours of 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to get information or
submit comments. The high school is one mile south of the town of Norfork in Baxter County
on Arkansas Highway 5. The Arkansas DEQ, U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, AG&FC, and
possibly other resource agencies will also be on hand. There will be no formal
presentations, just a video and handouts. However, all attendees will be provided the
opportunity to submit written comments.
We congratulate the Friends of the North Fork and White Rivers for their due diligence.
It's an effort worth supporting. If we can't protect two of the most famous recreational
waterways in the nation from unwise development through government indifference, what hope
do we have of saving anything else?
Crooked Creek Mining Permit Denied
If you see the smallmouth bass in Crooked Creek jumping unusually
high these days, its because the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality lived up to
its name and denied a permit for in-stream gravel mining requested by Halliday Hauling,
Inc. of Yellville. Halliday was notified of the denial in a letter dated June 27, and
signed by James F. Stephens, chief of DEQ's Surface Mining and Reclamation Division.
The permit had been widely opposed by conservationists
because it would have damaged one of the least disturbed and most productive fishing areas
on this nationally famous Ozark fishing stream. DEQ received 33 responses that earned
legal standing" opposing the draft decision.
It's not enough for citizens to have a "gut reaction"
that a proposed mining project is bad their objections have to show that the permit did
not satisfy specific technical requirements. This application raised a lot
of questions.
"The final decision was based upon the technical comments
received and the site visit on May 16, 200l," Stephens replied to Halliday.
In a nutshell, Stephens's report stated that during the May 16
site visit "Department staff identified the Ordinary High Water Mark (OHWM) according
to the definition contained in Regulation No. 15. The Department's
determination did not match what had been submitted by Halliday Hauling, Inc., therefore
the Department determined that the maps submitted with the application were not accurate
enough to meet the requirements of Section 15.306 of Regulation No. 15. Furthermore, it
was found that the majority of the gravel to be mined was outside of the Ordinary High
Water Marks and not eligible to be mined under an in-stream mining permit.
Many of those persons who wrote comments complained that the site
maps submitted by Halliday were "inconsistent regarding map scale from site to
site" and that "the charts do not show the ordinary high water mark for some
drawings and the elevations for OHWM are not stated."
In it's response, DEQ agreed that "the site maps are
inconsistent and do not reflect the Ordinary High Water Mark that was identified by a
member of the Technical Services Division during an on-site visit in May 200l.
Virtually all of the proposed mining areas are outside of the Ordinary High Water Mark and
therefore cannot be mined under an in-stream permit. During the on-site visit Mr. Halliday
had stated that the parts of the area had been mined approximately 10 years earlier by
McClinton-Anchor. This earlier pre-law mining is probably the reason that the site is
showing stability problems such as bank erosion and the cause for the primary deposition
of gravel outside of the Ordinary High Water Mark to fill in the previously mined
areas."
The mining situation described above is just the type of damaging
scenario that Dr. Arthur V. Brown and his assistant, Madeline M. Lyttle, described in
their comprehensive 1992 study, "Impacts of Gravel Mining on Ozark Stream
Ecosystems."
As this is written, this latest threat to Crooked Creek
appears to be over. It would also appear that the days of sloppy permit applications will
no longer be tolerated. However, the applicant or any person that submitted public
comments on the record may request in writing an adjudicatory hearing and the Commission
review of this final decision pursuant to the procedure listed in Section 2.l.l4 of
Regulation No. 8.
For those who don't have it, the ADEQ website is www.adeq.state.ar.us. This site will keep you
posted on Department activities.
Hot Days and Cool Books
By John Heuston
Okay. Let's face it. The sweat-stained dog days of extreme summer are upon us and
sometimes it's best to frustrate the ticks and chiggers by curling up in a cool spot with
a good book while waiting out a hot spell.
This is reminder that Ozark Society Books has what you are looking for - the best
information sources available on what to see and do in the fabled Ozark Mountain region
that is "nobody knows how old." Ozark Society Books, known to area booksellers
as "Books for Outdoor People," is one of the educational endeavors of the Ozark
Society Foundation, an offspring of the Ozark Society, Inc. The Ozark Society's three
basic goals are first and foremost, "Conservation," second,
"Education" and third, "Recreation." Our education outreach through
books is devoted to all three goals.
The Ozark Society's publishing program began with Kenneth L. Smith's timeless book, the
"The Buffalo River Country," in May 1967. Dr. Neil Compton of Bentonville, the
founding president of the Ozark Society, detailed the 10-year battle (l962-1972) to save
the Buffalo River from proposed Army Corps of Engineers dams at Gilbert and Lone Rock in
his book, "The Battle For The Buffalo River." Dr. Compton, who held degrees in
biology and geology as well as medicine, also wrote "The High Ozarks: A Vision of
Eden" (1982) to explain how the Ozark Mountains and valleys were geologically formed
and how the area's first inhabitants lived and worked.
There are also canoeing guides to the Buffalo and Mulberry rivers by veteran paddlers
Harold and Margaret Hedges; "Cadron Creek" with photos by Dr. Lil Junas; and an
overview of the Illinois River country of Arkansas and Oklahoma, "Illinois
River," by Ken Smith. Wildflower fans will also enjoy our books on native wildflowers
(Hunter and Leake).
Carl Hunter also has reference books you won't find elsewhere, such as his "Trees,
Shrubs & Vines of Arkansas," and "Autumn Leaves & Winter Berries in
Arkansas," which helps you identify trees when the leaves are off. Clever.
The Society also sells the hiking trail guides written by Tim Ernst of
"Cloudland" fame, including Arkansas Hiking Trails, Ozark Highlands Trail,
Buffalo River Hiking Trails, and the Ouachita Trail. We also have an
award-winning video, "The Buffalo River A National Treasure" produced by T.L.
Bass Telepictures of Fort Smith that has some amazing interviews with people who grew up
along the Buffalo. We also have the Buffalo National River maps, east half and west half,
from Trails Illustrated.
Our Wilderness Map Series covers the Black Fork Mountain Wilderness and Flatside
Wilderness in the Ouachita National Forest, and East Fork and Leatherwood wilderness areas
in the Ozark National Forest.
It all makes for some cool reading on a hot day. If you don't have a complete book list
with pricing information, contact Mrs., Isabelle Roach at Ozark Society Books, P.O. Box
3503, Little Rock, AR 72203. Remember, Ozark Society members get a 10 percent discount!
WARNING! NO GLASS!
(Editor's Note) Arkansas law now forbids glass bottles in"watercraft" subject to
"turning over," which apparently means canoes, kayaks, rafts, inner tubes, body
boats, life jackets, floating logs or whatever. So, use plastic bottles or aluminum cans
(attached to a floatable foam huggy) and have a mesh trash bag aboard. Flat-bottom
jonboaters, apparently, get a free ride and can continue to suck on their glass whiskey
bottles as they joyfully careen into the willow thickets. Why didn't they just ban ALL
glass containers on ALL watercraft used on rivers--period?
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