Blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for timber damage at Henry Gray Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management Area is convenient but misguided, Corps personnel say.
Steve Bays, a hydraulic engineer for the Corps, and Nathaniel Keen, chief reservoir control engineer for the Corps, object to the Corps being blamed for timber damage in more than 1,000 acres of bottomland hardwood timber in the south green tree reservoir at Henry Gray Hurricane Lake WMA.
The low-lying portions of the WMA are directly influenced by water levels in the White River, which -- according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission -- has experienced 10 of its top 25 highest crests at Augusta since 2007.
AGFC literature says that water enters the Hurricane Lake WMA's green tree reservoirs when the White River reaches about 24 feet at the Augusta gauge. River levels exceeded this mark for several months during the growing season for the last six years. In 2015 and 2017, river levels exceeded 24 feet from March 1 through late summer.
That water comes from Bull Shoals Lake, which is fed by Table Rock Lake, which is fed by Beaver Lake. Lake Norfork, which impounds the North Fork of the White River, also feeds the White River at the town of Norfork.
Those are Corps reservoirs, and members of the public at a recent meeting in Searcy said the Corps is responsible.
The Corps disagrees.
The White River reservoirs provide water for generating hydroelectricity, but their primary function is to prevent catastrophic flooding while also providing a dependable, consistent water supply for multiple other uses.
There is a limit to the amount of water the reservoirs can hold. When they near their limit, the Corps must release water downstream to make room for inflow from the next major rain event. When major rain events occur in succession, the Corps must continually release large amounts of water.
Consider this. For a period in 2008, Bull Shoals Lake alone held more than 5 million acre-feet of water.
"That's enough to cover 5 million acres with one foot of water," Bays said. How do you get that out with a low enough flow to get ready for rain events?"
For scale, the Ozark and Ouachita national forests together comprise about 3 million acres.
Managing water levels is a calculated risk. Meteorologists accurately predict weather on a continental scale, Bays said, but forecasting weather locally is inexact.
"It's not a matter of is it going to rain, but on which side of the hill is it going to rain?" Keen asked. "If we let water go [from a lake] and it doesn't fill, how do you explain to the public that they're going to experience power outages?"
The Corps' management of its lakes is straightforward in a water management plan.
"Our mission is to get water out as quickly as we can to get ready for the next event," he said.
The plan lists simple water level and date targets much like the AGFC's water management plan for Bayou Meto WMA.
Water naturally fills the lowest ground, and it only drains when the White River falls low enough to pull water out of the lowlands. Loss of channel capacity as the White River gets wider and shallower compromises the river's ability to drain its lowlands, Bays said.
Bays and Keen said the Corps is not indifferent to timber damage in Hurricane Lake WMA, but that is an external factor that does not influence reservoir management.
"If we don't follow the plan, people have the right to sue us," Bays said. "Every time you change something, somebody is going to benefit, but somebody else is going to pay. It impacts rice farmers. It impacts corn farmers."
Bays and Keen said they are not convinced that water alone is responsible for timber damage at Hurricane Lake WMA. They said that herbicides draining into the watershed might accumulate in the lowlands and damage trees. Other factors might also be in play, they said. Comprehensive water sampling would be insightful, they added.
Wet/dry cycles are not new. There were also very wet years in 1903, 1905 and in 1915-16, Bays said. August 1915 produced the biggest flood on the Buffalo River prior to December 1982.
There was also a dry period in the 1950s, Bay said, adding that wet and dry cycles run in 10-15 year increments.
Solutions were not part of the discussion. The Corps is responsible for the lakes, not the WMA. Bays and Keen said the Corps shouldn't be faulted for doing its job.
Sports on 11/25/2018