Tyson Foods Inc. and the Nature Conservancy will work together on projects intended to conserve water quality in rivers and streams throughout Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri.
The Springdale-based company will announce its collaboration with the environmental organization during a ceremony today with Tyson presenting a $500,000 check for conservation initiatives. The money will support stream restoration, reforestation, erosion prevention, unpaved road improvements and watershed research throughout the area.
"We've been thinking for a few years about ways in which we could engage with another party that has significant credibility in the area of conservation," said Kevin Igli, Tyson's senior vice president and chief environmental officer and a member of the Nature Conservancy's board. "It's been a work in progress for quite a while coming up with some ideas. So this collaboration is bringing to fruition a number of different ideas that have been kicked around for a long time."
Igli said Tyson is looking forward to the partnership because of the Nature Conservancy's reputation for conservation efforts. The Nature Conservancy is a private, nonprofit organization that describes its mission as to "conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends," according to its website.
The Nature Conservancy has its headquarters in Arlington, Va., but has offices in 30 countries and across the United States. It includes an Arkansas chapter based in Little Rock.
Tyson is one of the world's largest food companies and has more than 400 buildings and offices in the U.S and around the world.
Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri are home to more than 14,000 Tyson employees, eight processing plants and 800 contract farmers. Mike Roetzel, executive vice president of operation services for Tyson Foods, said the region was selected for conservation work because of the company's footprint. Tyson feels an "enormous responsibility" to conserve the region's "precious natural resources."
"Northwest Arkansas is the birthplace of Tyson Foods," Roetzel said. "This is where we call home. We have a commitment to this area. And along with that commitment, we have a responsibility here.
"So I think this type of collaboration really puts some structure and some purpose around all of the efforts we want to do to ensure that we're living up to that responsibility."
The majority of the conservation projects funded by Tyson will center on improving water quality at the Kings, Elk and Buffalo rivers. Tyson also said the agreement will pay for a watershed coordinator who will work for the Nature Conservancy in Missouri.
Scott Simon, director for the Arkansas Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said erosion control and sediment reduction will be the emphasis of the work. He said planting trees along stream banks, restoring eroding stream banks and repairing eroding, unpaved roads will reduce sediment in the rivers. It also lowers costs for water treatment facilities.
"Arkansas has a great culture of leading companies, conservation organizations and agencies working together to maintain the quality of our landscapes and our habitats for people to enjoy," Simon said. "For Tyson to do this, it just sends a really great message that we are all dependent on this water. We use it for recreation. We use it for drinking. It's in our own best interest to try to keep it clean."
The partnership comes nearly seven months after Tyson reached a $540,000 settlement with Missouri over an acidic wastewater dump that killed about 100,000 fish along a 4-mile stretch of Clear Creek in the southwestern part of the state. The settlement was the second-largest environmental penalty Tyson has paid since 2009.
Igli said the collaboration with the Nature Conservancy was not tied to the settlement. He said Tyson had been searching for a way to broaden its affiliation with third-party organizations such as the Nature Conservancy long before the wastewater dump occurred.
"This is a look forward," Igli said. "This is a prospective action about where we're trying to go."
Tyson has researched ways to conserve and reuse water in its processing plants, including the formation of a Water Council with the help of the University of Arkansas in 2013. The council was created to understand the landscape for water management. It also has created short- and long-term plans for water management across the company.
Igli said Tyson believes its collaboration with the Nature Conservancy is "fairly significant," and both parties are confident it will succeed. It could lead to future efforts outside the region.
"The Nature Conservancy touches places all over the world," Igli said. "It really gives us a potential vehicle that if we find other opportunities in other areas where we operate that would be good matches, those are things we'd certainly look at down the road."
Business on 07/15/2015