We have good reason to fear for the health of the Buffalo River, but it's unfair to blame it all on one hog farm that's not even on the river.
According to the National Park Service, an average of 1.2 million people visited the Buffalo River annually from 2004-2014, including nearly 1.4 million in 2014, more than 1.4 million in 2008 and more than 1.5 million in 2009-2010. That's a lot of bodies on a narrow, shallow, 135-mile long river, most of which concentrate in a much smaller portion.
If we assume that waste reaches the Buffalo from the hog farm on Big Creek, then we can also assume that a substantial percentage of paddlers, swimmers, anglers and picnickers directly introduce liquid and/or solid waste into the Buffalo. Evidence exists in the form of soiled diapers lying in or near the water at major public accesses, most notably Steel Creek, Kyle's Landing, Tyler Bend, Buffalo City, Dillards Ferry and Rush.
Improper disposal of human waste is even more egregious on the gravel bars in remote areas. During my float fishing trip last week on the Buffalo River. For example, my group camped on a large gravel bar between Dillards Ferry and Rush. At the break line where the gravel bar meets soil bank, human excrement extended nearly the entire length of the bar and was amply marked by piles of toilet paper.
The latrine area is well below the high-water mark. The next time the Buffalo floods, all of that waste, along with its bacteria, viruses and internal parasites, will wash into the river.
That's just one gravel bar. Multiply it by at least 50 to envision the impact on water quality.
Our group, for the record, buries waste with a shovel, and we burn the paper.
Although boaters are required to secure their loads to their boats on the Buffalo, flotsam often enters the river whenever a canoe tumps. I've seen many people lose cell phones and other electronic equipment powered by batteries that contain lithium, manganese, nickel, phosphate and cobalt.
In time, water and gravel abrade these items and release the chemicals into the water.
If we assume that the hog farm pollutes the Buffalo, then we must also credit the nutrients that enter the river from hay cultivation in the Buffalo River watershed. There are a lot of lush, verdant fields in the area, including many that abut the river. They receive large applications of fertilizer that wash into the river directly, or that leach into the river indirectly through the karst substrate.
Its effect on the river's riparian character is profound, but it's not all bad. In the lower Buffalo River, for example, nutrient loading enabled the establishment of grassbeds and other riparian vegetation that create excellent fish habitat that did not exist in the 1990s.
The biggest threat to the Buffalo is erosion. Every flood carves deeper into the banks and deposits gravel and silt that have filled in what were once deep holes. Consequently, the Buffalo continually grows wider, shallower and warmer. This affects the entire biota, including the fishery. The effects will become more pronounced over time.
The reason for this, in my opinion, is the conflicting dynamic between water in the Buffalo and White rivers. White River water is much colder and thus more dense than water in the Buffalo. During hydropower releases from Bull Shoals Dam, the White River essentially forms a hydraulic dam at the mouth of the Buffalo, which halts the flow of the warmer, less dense Buffalo water. It backs up the Buffalo and prevents it from draining into the White. You can watch it on the lower Buffalo every time the generators run at Bull Shoals Dam because the Buffalo rises several feet for several miles.
Its drainage impaired, the Buffalo spreads out during floods, eddies, churns and gouges ever deeper into its banks. Instead of flushing out loose silt and gravel, it settles.
Despite all of its glowing promotional prose, the Buffalo is imperiled, but blaming it all on one landowner is misguided and intellectually dishonest.
Sports on 06/12/2016