Not only is Eureka Springs among my favorite places, it's a town that continually faces situations best described as downright quirky.
If part of the downtown's parking area isn't caving in, the local burgeoning deer population is running amok, the former mayor is voting twice in the same election, ghosts are whipping in and out of the Crescent Hotel and the city council or advertising and promotion folks are grappling through another cage match.
Robert "Butch" Berry, the city's mayor, is doing a good job. But his hands are full, to say the least. As he understates it, "It's difficult to please everyone in Eureka Springs."
Ace reporter Bill Bowden this week explained the latest slice of offbeat Ozarkana to perch in Eureka's canopies. The city is hosting untold hundreds of black vultures who've decided they, too, like the charms of this community popularly known as the Switzerland of the Ozarks. They've been descending to camp in neighborhood trees, as they often do in winter.
It's not that Berry and his community are inhospitable. One homeowner told the city council that she actually purchased her home because of the vultures. "She seems to love them," said Berry. I don't know what to even say about vulture love.
The flap (sorry) here is these large migratory scavengers deposit their droppings and foul regurgitations in yards. Moreover, their hatchlings create feather fluff resembling dryer lint within the community after their eggs hatch.
If that's not enough to irritate the property owners who are most affected, Bowden's story said the beaked ransackers are fond of stripping away anything that even appears to be made of rubber. That can spell bad news for vehicle owners with windshield wipers, rubber moldings of all kinds and even the rubber used between concrete sidewalks to accommodate expansion.
Black vultures differ from their mostly homebodied, redheaded Arkansas cousins in that they migrate each fall, many to wind up in Arkansas. The city's last black vulture blizzard occurred in 2007 when the town tried loud sonic cannons to scare them away. But the noise triggered too many complaints so they gave up. The federal government says vultures are protected birds and can't be killed without government permission.
For now the Eureka Council has decided to put the onus back on individual property owners, Berry explained. "It was decided this problem really isn't a city matter as much as it is the unfortunate homeowners being affected by it."
Yep, quirky fits like a glove.
Readers want hearing
Thanks to valued readers who responded to my call last week for comments on our governor and the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission needing to instruct the foot-dragging Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (cough) to schedule a hearing where all new research on possible contamination of the Buffalo National River watershed by the hog factory at Mount Judea can be formally submitted. Here are a few responses.
From Virginia McKimmey: "Thank you for your tireless effort to try to do something about the swine fiasco close to the Buffalo River. When I've called our elected officials' offices about this matter, I have been told nothing can be done! That makes me furious ... People are disgusted with politics. The Buffalo is our only national river, so why can't our congressional delegation do something since local politicians won't? I like regulation since banks, business and people don't do such a good job of regulating themselves. It's all about politics and the bottom line."
From Dorothy Trickey: "On the Buffalo River/C&H Hog Farm--our governor and Pollution Control and Ecology should force a hearing on this matter. Our river should be saved from pollution and loved and enjoyed by all Arkansans as well as tourists. Save the Buffalo! Thanks for keeping us informed on this issue."
From Bill Caller: "We need hearings, not based on money, but on saving the beautiful river in its pristine state. Please keep pen in hand and don't spare the paper. You need to be the voice for all of Arkansas."
Finally, I appreciated the following message from retired engineer Duane Woltjen: "There's no reason to believe the installation of pond liners will stop the obvious leakage or spillage that is evident by contamination of the well water. Even a perfect pond liner will not stop the leakage that's probably occurring through the floor of the building or due to incidental spillage.
"The pond liner, besides incurring obvious further risks associated with installation, fails to do anything to facilitate actual monitoring of liner leakage should it occur. Likewise, it does nothing to ensure that the floor of the barn is not also source of leakage--highly probable when a new building settles.
"It's of little comfort to realize that ADEQ actually only requires that leakage be less than 5,000 gallons a day for each pond acre, so it really isn't legally necessary to actually stop the leakage, just slow it down (if you can figure a way to actually measure leakage of that magnitude)."
"The only sure way to protect the resources of the people is obvious. I'll leave expression of how that might be done to a reasonably bright fifth grader."
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 10/03/2015