Film retraces campaign to save Buffalo River

It’s been 50 years since the Buffalo River became the first National Wild and Scenic River.

Its addition into the national parks system protected the Buffalo from being dammed and its beautiful, historic valley being inundated.

Produced by The Ozark Society, “First River, How Arkansas Saved a National Treasure,” is an excellent film about the campaign to preserve the Buffalo River. I attended a screening Tuesday at St. James United Methodist Church, but you can stream it from the Ozark Society’s website at ozarksociety.net.

With gorgeous footage from the water and from the air along with archival footage, the film recalls how the Army Corps of Engineers targeted the Buffalo River near the end of its dam building spree in the 1960s. From the film I learned that the Corps actually planned to build two dams on the Buffalo River. The more notorious site was at Gilbert, but another was to be erected near the Buffalo’s confluence with the White River.

Thankfully, the film dispenses with the heroes-and-villains aspect of the campaign, duly noting that influential business and political figures in the region wanted the prosperity that they believed the dams would bring. I am skeptical of that premise. Beaver Lake’s creation enabled prosperity in Northwest Arkansas due to its proximity to existing population hubs.

Branson, Mo., built a tourism industry on Table Rock Lake, but lakes Norfork and Bull Shoals did not have as dramatic an effect in north-central Arkansas. The communities along the Buffalo River are even more remote, with relatively little of the manufacturing or tourism capability that would blossom from abundant water and cheap electricity.

That aside, the film notes that one segment of society in the Buffalo River region had one vision for the river. Conservationists, alarmed at the wholesale loss of land, flora, fauna, recreational opportunities and unique lifestyles, had a different vision.

They also had a lot of the right friends in the right places. That was the key to their success. Opposition for damming the Buffalo River far outpaced support, and opposition came from all over the United States. Perhaps the most prominent advocate for preserving the Buffalo River was William O. Douglas, an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court. He threw in his support to the preservationists after a multiday float trip.

Another key figure was former U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt. The freshman congressman tested the wind of public opinion and felt it blowing against development. Sen. J. William Fulbright was an early opponent of damming the Buffalo. Sen. John McClellan followed suit.

The last, most insurmountable obstacle to the dams was Gov. Orval Faubus. Initially he supported damming the Buffalo, but he ultimately felt the wind blowing against the project, as well. In those days, if a head of state opposed a Corps of Engineers project, the project would be tabled or suspended until a more sympathetic governor was elected. Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, who succeeded Faubus, supported the dams, but by then opposition was too strong.

On March 1, 1972, President Nixon signed legislation creating the Buffalo National River and adding it to the National Parks System. On that same date in 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the legislation that created Yellowstone National Park.

“First River” also explains how The Ozark Society remains vigilant against ongoing threats to the Buffalo River’s integrity. The infamous C&H hog farm gets a significant cameo in this segment, as does the campaign to shut down a solid waste landfill at Pindall in 1987.

The script notes that the national park boundaries encompass only 11% of the Buffalo River’s watershed. Development, degradation and erosion in the remaining 89% of the watershed is inflicting insidious harm to the river. The Buffalo River is getting wider, shallower and warmer, to the detriment of fisheries in particular. Once deep holes are filled with gravel and silt from the sloughing of unstable river banks.

Because of these affronts, today’s Buffalo River is far different from the Buffalo River of 1972.

Archaic environmental standards enabled environmentally dubious projects to be conceived and built in the delicate topography of the Ozarks.

The Buffalo is a national treasure, but gradual, evolutionary dangers are its greatest threats.