Buffalo River group told of grants awarded for water quality projects

LITTLE ROCK — The chairman of Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s Buffalo River Conservation Committee on Wednesday highlighted two recent multimillion dollar federal grants supporting water quality projects within the northern Arkansas watershed.

Arkansas Department of Agriculture Secretary Wes Ward, the committee’s chairman, acknowledged the meeting was “more of a status update” because their Buffalo River conservation work is occurring in the midst of the covid-19 crisis.

“Just because of the coronavirus and its impact across the board on putting a lot of things on hold, we just wanted to reassure everybody that we would continue to move forward with the efforts,” Ward said.

Meeting remotely via conference call, officials on the committee discussed the potential for improvements to unpaved roads and wastewater systems near the Buffalo River.

Hutchinson created the committee in September after a drawn-out fight between conservationists and the owners of a hog farm in the watershed. C&H Hog Farms ultimately closed in January as a result of a buyout deal with the state.

Ward described two recent federal grants related to improving the watershed announced since the Buffalo River committee’s last meeting in February.

In late February, federal agencies said they will work to improve water quality in Northwest Arkansas

and southeast Oklahoma spending $2.37 million in the Ozark-Ouachita region during 2020.

The planned work relating to fishing, tourism and wildfire mitigation will take place in six regional watersheds as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership.

On April 16, the USDA announced the Buffalo River Watershed Enhancement Project, led by the department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Nature Conservancy, will receive close to $2.7 million.

The project aims to collaborate with local landowners in the watershed on conservation practices to improve water quality.

Ward called them “two very positive announcements”

and emphasized the federal programs are voluntary for landowners.

“Nothing’s being forced on anybody,” he said.

Brent Clark, an official with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, said Buffalo River communities in Searcy and Newton counties will have “exciting” opportunities on the horizon because of the money. Information on how to sign up and how money will be distributed is expected shortly, Clark said.

Other officials described where their work stands regarding unpaved roads and wastewater in the Buffalo River watershed.

Tony Ramick, an Arkansas Department of Agriculture division manager for nonpoint source management and unpaved road programs, said he was in the Buffalo River watershed Wednesday meeting with local officials to view unpaved road sites in

Searcy and Newton counties.

Ramick said they are exploring cost estimates, which hopefully can be presented to the committee in the coming weeks.

Unpaved roads can contribute to reduced water quality because of sediment runoff, as well as airborne dust in rural communities, according to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

Debby Dickson, program fiscal manager at the Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Division, told the committee they expect to receive funding applications from two communities in the watershed related to wastewater improvement.

She said the state has already received an application from Marble Falls and she expects to receive another by the end of the week from Jasper.

Dickson added there’s ongoing discussion about a septic tank remediation pilot

program that might be available in the watershed as well.

Between 1 million to 2 million people visit the Buffalo National River annually, but for now the river is closed for recreational purposes because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Caleb Osborne, chief of staff at the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism, told committee members the department has been “kind of overwhelmed” because of the coronavirus outbreak, but he said the virus has “reiterated just how important tourism is to the state and how important it is to our communities.”

The National Park Service closed the river to all visitors except residential and through traffic April 2 because of the outbreak. The park closing came one day after Hutchinson expressed concern about out-of-state visitors coming to the scenic waterway from areas where

the coronavirus is more widespread.

During Wednesday’s meeting, Becky Keogh, the secretary of the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, said the department is considering U.S. Department of Energy opportunities or other federal money to support local farmers with the deployment of solar energy or similar low-cost options.

However, a potential grant request hasn’t been finalized, Keogh said.

She said Arkansas’ federal partners are interested in the Buffalo River efforts happening at the state level.

“They like the leadership the state’s taken,” Keogh said.

Federal officials are trying to defer their regulatory authority and “let the state work through these solutions, because they’re more effective generally anyway,” she added.