A new state law has made it possible for counties across the state to help prevent unpaved roads from choking Arkansas streams and lakes.
Unpaved roads make up 85 percent of the 55,000 miles of county roads in the state. A tiny percentage of the unpaved county roads -- as little as 5 percent and likely even less -- accounts for up to 25 percent of the sediment runoff in Arkansas, according to Scott Simon, director of the Nature Conservancy of Arkansas.
The new law, Act 898 of 2015, sets up a private-public partnership to provide a 50 percent match for projects to mitigate the sediment problem. Money raised also will be used for demonstration, training, promotion and use of best-management practices in building and maintaining unpaved roads near lakes, rivers and streams.
The law's supporters hope it will not only lead to better roads but eventually help reduce the cost to treat the state's drinking water, better protect the natural habitat of threatened species and help stave off environment-related litigation that they say could hurt economic development.
"This is a proactive approach that addresses many concerns," said state Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, who sponsored the bill that became Act 898, which is modeled after a similar approach developed in Pennsylvania.
All those goals are a seemingly tall order for the act, which officially creates the Arkansas Unpaved Roads Program. But that benign title masks a significant sediment problem, proponents say.
"Excess sediment within a stream can fill in gravel beds, choking out insects, larvae and small fish at the bottom of the food chain, which, in turn, affects game fish near the top of the food chain," according to the state nature conservancy.
That sediment also can add to the costs of making water safe to drink, Simon said.
"The good part is [sedimentation] is avoidable; it's addressable," he said. "You can repair those roads so they don't erode. But it's a little more expensive and requires new techniques."
The new law comes as the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups pressure the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to safeguard what they see as a freshwater extinction crisis in Arkansas and the rest of the southeastern United States. The center reached a settlement with the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011 that compelled the agency to move the protection process forward on 757 species and plants, all of which contribute to one of the most biologically diverse regions of the United States.
"The handwriting is on the wall," said Scott Perkins, a spokesman for the Association of Arkansas Counties, one of about a dozen organizations that coalesced around the legislation.
In Arkansas, the yellowcheek darter is one of more than 40 species of animals and plants the center has identified as at risk. It is found in the South Fork of the Little Red River, which bisects the Gulf Mountain Wildlife Management Area of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, encompassing about 14,000 acres in Van Buren County.
The management area was used in a pilot project that applied environmentally friendly techniques to repair an unpaved road, which was producing sediment runoff that flowed into the South Fork and threatened the habitat of the yellowcheek darter.
"Anything that can abate that, we want to help," said Mike Armstrong, special projects coordinator for the agency. "We're interested in not contributing to endangered species."
The commission staff is recommending that the commission devote $150,000 in each of the next two fiscal years beginning July 1 to the new Arkansas Unpaved Road Program, he said.
Another early proponent of the program is Brandon Ellison, county judge of Polk County, who is concerned about efforts to close off 42 miles of trails used by all-terrain vehicle enthusiasts. Much of the trail system is on federal lands. They are an important source of tourism dollars for the county, Ellison said.
The trail system goes through the Board Camp Creek watershed, which in turn flows into the Ouachita River, where the Arkansas fatmucket mussel is found. The Arkansas fatmucket is one of only two mussel species in the state.
"Sedimentation was the key issue," Ellison said. "The trail system was a detriment in some people's minds."
But with 1,300 miles of county roads to maintain with an annual $3 million budget for his county's road and bridge department, Ellison has neither the extra money nor the expertise to apply more environmentally sound practices to building and maintaining unpaved roads. Other counties are in the same predicament, Ellison said.
One of the demonstration projects to show the program's worth was in Polk County. The county, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy all contributed to the construction of a new bridge on Polk County Road 61. The old bridge was a source of sedimentation in the watershed.
A new bridge typically costs about $25,000. But Ellison said the project also included adding a foundation for the bridge and improvements to both approaches to the bridge to provide better drainage. The total cost was about $83,000, of which the county contributed $33,000, according to Ellison.
Under the new law, an application process will be developed through the Arkansas Department of Rural Services, which will establish an advisory committee to evaluate the applications.
Eligible projects will be limited to a watershed area that has at least one of these features: an aquatic species the U.S. government has deemed threatened or endangered, a body of water that is impaired because of sediment building, a drinking water source, a body of water that crosses state lines, a species that the state Game and Fish Commission has declared to be of "greatest conservation needs," an agriculture or pasture land use or a forestry land use.
Ellison said educating counties on better techniques might help address the problem as much as any money that will become available through the program.
"I'm hoping it changes some of the practices we have now," he said. "We have some poor methods and techniques because that's the way it's always been done."
Metro on 04/13/2015