Water quality is degraded on several Arkansas waterways right now, and that's unacceptable in a place we call The Natural State.
We are aware of deteriorating water quality on the Buffalo National River, which was highlighted in recent coverage by Emily Walkenhorst in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The White River below Beaver Dam -- the Beaver Tailwater -- also is stressed because of excessive water temperatures and low dissolved oxygen.
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality recently listed the Buffalo River and its tributary, Big Creek, as impaired because of excessive levels of water-borne pathogens. The National Park Service, which administers the Buffalo National River, requested that Mill Creek and Bear Creek also be listed as impaired because of high levels of E. coli bacteria.
Spectators blame the high pathogen load on a large hog farm situated on Big Creek about 6 miles above its confluence with the Buffalo. The hog farm probably is a factor, judging from similar experiences with the swine-farming industry in North Carolina.
In 1997, there were 7 million hogs in confined feeding operations in North Carolina. A hog produces up to four times the waste of an average human, and the manure and urine are stored in deep earthen pits, or lagoons. The nitrogen-rich liquid in the pits is sprayed over fields for fertilizer.
The lagoons are said to be effective containers for the waste because the sludge supposedly settles to the bottom and forms an impermeable seal, even in the porous sandy soils of eastern North Carolina.
Studies by North Carolina State University in Raleigh indicated that as many as half of the existing lagoons leak badly enough to contaminate groundwater.
Soils in the Ozarks are thin, and the substrate is porous. Also, the geography is steep, and everything put on top of the ground tends to work its way to a drainage, which then continues on a down slope to a larger drainage.
It's not just nutrients from a single hog farm leaching into the watershed, but also fertilizers from beef pastures and other agricultural operations. There are, for example, lush green hay fields bordering the river at the Highway 65 bridge, at Steel Creek and at Tyler Bend, and along Bear Creek between Marshall and St. Joe.
As a frequent and intensive recreational Buffalo River user since the early 1990s, I have noted the rapid degradation not only of water quality in the river but also of the waterway in general. I've been writing about algae blooms at least since 2013, but they are now so prevalent that they render unusable our traditional fishing methods.
Another glaring difference is the transformation of habitat in the lower Buffalo River from 1995-2013. Nutrient loading has facilitated the establishment of extensive vegetation that did not previously exist.
Other factors are prominently in play, too.
The National Park Service estimates 1.5 million people visited the Buffalo National River in 2017. Philadelphia and Phoenix have populations slightly higher than 1.5 million. San Antonio and San Diego are slightly under 1.5 million.
Consider the biological effect that a population the size of Philadelphia has on a waterway that's about 150 miles long and less than 100 yards wide.
Consider also that most of those visits are concentrated from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and they are generally concentrated roughly from Kyle's Landing to Highway 14.
Only whitewater paddlers float the upper section -- known as the Hailstone River -- above Ponca, and only during high water, usually in early spring. Few float the 30-plus mile section of the lower Buffalo from Rush to the White River, and the section from Kyle's to Pruitt is usually too low for floating by mid-June.
That concentrates visitation to the middle section, which contains the 14.3-mile stretch that the state lists as impaired.
If you float the middle section of the Buffalo this weekend, examine any big gravel bar. You will notice, especially along the brush line, a line of exposed human feces and paper. The bacteria-laden waste will enter the river in the next flood.
The hog farm, on the other hand, operates year round.
Bacteria isn't the issue in the Beaver Tailwater. The trout that inhabit the tailwater are stressed from high water temperatures resulting from idle hydropower generators at Beaver Dam.
One generator was offline for several weeks, and the second generator was taken offline in late July. There is no minimum flow requirement in the Beaver Tailwater, so there is no remedy until hydropower generation resumes.
Sports on 08/02/2018