IRWP holds groundbreaking at golf course
Illinois River Watershed Project (IRWP) hosted a groundbreaking ceremony at The Course at Sager’s Crossing on Tuesday to celebrate a new project that will help restore more than 4,000 linear feet of stream bank of the golf course’s stretch of Sager Creek, according to a press release from the IRWP.
In a partnership with the city, which owns the property, IRWP hired Natural State Streams to restore the stream bank, the press release states.
The $2.8 million project is funded equally by the Arkansas Natural Resource Division and the Walton Family Foundation, according to IRWP Executive Director Nicole Hardiman. Completion of the project is expected to be in eight or nine weeks, said Curtis Smith, a member of The Course at Sager’s Crossing’s Board of Directors.
The ceremony was attended by Siloam Springs Mayor Judy Nation; City Administrator Phillip Patterson; Communications Manager Holland Hayden; and City Directors Mindy Hunt, Lesa Rissler and Marla Sappington.
IRWP staff in attendance included Hardiman, Restoration Specialist Travis Chaney and Community Relations Manager Morgan Keeling. Also present were Smith and Natural State Streams Project Manager T.J. Hines.
The event began with presentations by Chaney, Smith, Hardiman and Hines, then everyone headed to the stream bank to pose for photos.
Participating in the groundbreaking were Smith; Hines; Golf Course Manager Jonathan Self and his son Hunter; Arkansas Natural Resources Division Deputy Director Ryan Benefield P.E.; Sappington; Chaney; Rissler; Patterson; Hunt and Nation.
“It’s really sort of a community based restoration effort that’s in the name of water quality, outdoor recreation, and habitat preservation and it’s so cool to experience this with everyone,” Hardiman said.
IRWP’s executive director hopes this will kick off a series of restoration projects throughout Sager Creek.
Chaney said the process will involve sloping back the stream banks by using large rock and large tree root balls down at the toe. Then the whole area will be revegitated with native grasses, sedges, flowers and shrubs, he said.
The toe of the stream is the bottom portion of the stream bank in contact with the water during noral flow levels, Chaney said. It supports the weight of the bank above it and is the most common place for stream banks
to help, Chaney said.
“The vegetation is really going to provide the long-term stability and the visual pop that you’re looking for when you come to play the course,” Chaney said.
There will also be a habitat for frogs, lizards and ducks and it will be hydraulically connected into the stream system, Chaney said. When stream flows are slightly above normal, water from the creek will rise up and fill the off-channel wetland area, he said.
Along with the stream bank of Sager Creek, several of the golf courses bridges will be reconstructed, Self said.
“We’ve got a couple of bridges that are in disrepair and they hang really low and when it floods in here, I don’t know how to explain it, it looks like a vortex sitting pulling water and trash under the bridges and spitting rocks out everywhere,” Self said.
Bridges on hole one and hole nine will be replaced, and the boards on the bridge on Hole Eight will be replaced, Smith said. The project will cost $25,500 and will be paid for by Simmons Foods, Smith said.
“We are extremely grateful for the Simmons willingness to collaborate on this project,” Smith said. “They are gracious stewards and wonderful partners for this creek restoration project.”
Completion of the bridge project is expected to take three to four weeks, Smith said.