The Ouachita River Money Pit

There are a lot of Money Pits when it comes to the Federal Budget, but when I see one right in my back yard it makes me want to scream. Well, here’s my scream: When I cross the Ouachita River at Calion, and look across at the new high bridge under construction, it makes my blood boil.

I guess, if you and your young son drove across the old bridge and looked at the new bridge, he might ask, “Daddy, why is the new bridge so tall?” You would say, “Son, it’s to let the barges travel under it.”

And he would say, “What barges?”

And you would say, “Look there’s a blue heron!”

Yes, the Arkansas part of the Ouachita River Navigation System needs to be put to sleep, and the continuing waste of money and loss of quality fishing and hunting eliminated. There is no barge traffic on the river, and my prospects for becoming governor are better than seeing a barge on the river. It is time to dismantle the last vestige of the Corp of Engineers’ irresponsibility, and return the river to its pre1960 condition. The Corp put in the new Thatcher locks in the 1960s to raise the water level to improve the conditions for barge traffic. It’s another “Field of Dreams”. You know, the movie about a farmer who built a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield? The baseball players did come. They were spirits of”Shoeless” Joe, etc., I guess the barge folks are looking for long dead Captain Tate in a riverboat to show up. The new locks didn’t do it, and the proposed bend cut are dead, so what’s next?

However, the new locks did raise the water level and flooded some 65,000 acres of bottomland hardwood forest and Pete Wilson’s Slough and Wildcat Lake, formerly the best fishing in the mid-south, became just part of a big new Arkansas Lake, which is now full of dead trees and moss.

The original plan was to create a green tree reservoir by dropping the water level down in the summer to preserve the hardwood trees and prevent moss from growing out of control. That was not done, and now the dead trees and mossy water are just a testament to bad waterway management. Currently, the fishery is only a sliver of what it once was, with dead trees and moss creating a sub-par fishing experience. Why not return the river to a recreational level that was far superior to what we have now?

The Arkansas Waterways Commission should remove the Ouachita River from the list of Arkansas navigable streams, and call for a public meeting to discuss the best and highest use of the River. The Corp of Engineers, without any prospects of having barge traffic on the river, and without any money in the Federal Budget for work on the River, is making “walk away” comments, and the citizens of South Arkansas should get involved to be sure the river and surrounding wetlands and lakes are left in the best shape possible. In order to maintain stable water levels, a Corps employee could monitor the river, and, if needed, could set the discharge to accommodate the desired flow rate. Surely this is no more than a one day a month job.

But what about the feasibility study made by the Corps? Those folks must moonlight for Walt Disney. The imagination they have when it comes to expected river traffic makes a flying carpet seem old hat. How can anyone sit down and calculate benefits expected from barge traffic when the last fifteen years of actual traffic has resulted in a massive hemorrhage of money?

Currently, the river is not a navigable stream for barge traffic, and that is a fact. The Corp refuses to dredge the nine foot channel because there hasn’t been a barge on the rivers in years, and until there are prospects for new barge traffic the river, it won’t be dredged. Of course, there is not one company that will commit to put one barge on the river, so it is time to ensure the river will be used for recreational activities. A public meeting should be held to allow input as to the best and highest recreational use for the river. By removing the river from its use as a navigable stream, and having it used primarily for recreational purposes it will accomplish several things:

(1) It will save millions of dollars by stopping any future dredging of the river, and reduce personnel that manage the lock and dam.

(2) It will create the best fishing in the mid-south and maybe the nation. Consider this: when the flooded sixty-five thousand acres are reduced back to the pre-sixties level, the millions of fish present will be concentrated in the original river, Wildcat Lake, and Pete

Wilson’s Slough. I can’t describe how great the fishing will be, because it will be phenomenal.

(3) The return of over 65,000 acres of prime bottomland hardwood as habit for deer, bear and turkey will greatly add to the hunting in the area.

(4) The moss, which is a huge problem today, will disappear.

(5) The reduction in pool level will not impact the existing pipelines that carry wastewater into the river since their permits are based on river flow not pool level. The return to pre-sixty water level will not affect the river’s flow.

Currently, the Corp is considering just walking away from the locks and dams since there are no prospects for barge traffic in the foreseeable future. We should be sure river is left in the best shape to provide recreational benefits to south Arkansas, and that is to return the water level to what it was in the pre-60s. Seriously folks, this whole thing would be a joke if the millions of dollars already spent dredging and putting in the new locks were coming from the folks who that promoted it. But no, they haven’t put up a cent nor can they produce one user for the river system.

Well, our choice boils down to this. Either continue to waste money and screw up the river, or to put our foot down and demand some fiscal and environmental responsibility. It’s not that we don’t need funding for the river, we do, but we need it for new boat ramps, marinas and other facilities. Can you imagine that if we had just spent a tenth of the money that has been wasted on the river for tourism promotion, the impact it would have on South Arkansas? I receive calls almost daily soliciting information about recreation and fishing on the river. We have a wonderful resource in the Ouachita River. Our neglect in promotion and development of this resource is almost disgraceful. Instead of destroying and ignoring our river, we should invest our limited funds to develop the river as one of the premier fishing and recreation areas in the South.