Groups’ effort to restore green space receives backing

JOHNSON — Travis Chaney, a restoration specialist for the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, over the past two years has spent many hours and much effort with his team trying to return 46 acres around the Springdale Water Utilities’ Johnson lift station to the way nature made it.

Clear Creek, a major player in storm drainage, crosses through the south end of the property and also needs restoration, he said. The land is about 2 miles northwest of the Northwest Arkansas Mall and, because of area development, receives more water than it can handle.

The Springdale water utility, Johnson and others are joining the effort.

Restoration of the property will provide habitat for wildlife and a place for recreation, said Chris Keeney, Johnson mayor.

More importantly, restoration of 6,000 linear feet of the creek bank on the property should improve water quality in the creek, which ultimately flows into the Illinois River, Chaney said.

Springdale Water and Sewer Commission, which oversees the municipal utility, voted Wednesday to help pay for detailed engineering and construction for a stream-bank plan from the Watershed Conservation Resource Center in Fayetteville.

The commission’s $50,000 donation — which will be matched by the partnership funds — will come from a logging project.

Stream-bank restoration is expensive, costing about $350 a foot, Chaney said.

“This project is high priority as the area contributes significant sediment to the watershed,” he said. “Projects like this prevent tons of sediment from washing into the stream during floods.”

Stream-bank erosion also is a main source of phosphorus in the water, said Heath Ward, executive director of Springdale Water Utilities.

Northwest Arkansas and industry leaders in the past few decades have worked to reduce the amount of phosphorus entering the watershed after Oklahoma groups filed several lawsuits over the water quality in the Illinois River.

The Johnson property is unique, Chaney said. It includes three creeks: Clear Creek and two tributaries, Little Sandy Creek and the Trout Run. The Trout Run flows through a wetland habitat created by beavers on the northwest side of the property, which the partnership also wishes to restore.

“And there’s tons of wildlife,” Chaney added, listing deer, wild turkey and water fowl.

The Springdale utility for many years leased the land around its lift station to farmers to grow hay.

“We envisioned the large piece of property as a green space or park,” Keeney said. “A little greenspace in a community where it is disappearing daily.”

The small city took over the lease, and Johnson crews spent hours and many dollars each week to mow the grass outside the pump station’s fence. They also have worked to clean up the area, including pulling out a number of automobiles rusting back in the woods, Chaney said.

About that time, the Illinois River Watershed Partnership stepped up with the idea of restoring the land to its natural state, Keeney said.

The watershed protection group in 2019 began a program of herbicide application four times a year and planting warm-season native grasses and wildflowers.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission staff led controlled burns on the acreage in the winter, hoping to re-create a habitat for the bobwhite quail, which has been disappearing along with its grassland habitat. Boosting quail numbers is a statewide effort for the wildlife commission.

But the natural plants didn’t take over after the first year as hoped, Chaney said, so the partnership staff repeated its regimen.

“And when I came out here in May, there was the most beautiful stand of crab grass you have ever seen,” Chaney said.

He suggested the group might use “adaptive management” and apply a more selective herbicide, burn again and drill more seed into the ground.

When Chaney looked closer Monday, he noted that native grasses were starting to emerge. He said he saw bluestem at ground level, although it should have been 8 to 12 feet tall.

“It doesn’t look quality, but it doesn’t have as many cattle grass species,” he said. “It’s the perfect example of how hard it can be to take a place that was historically degraded and restore it as an ecological habitat.

“It takes three to five years to get a good stand,” Chaney said. “But once established, the native grass will be able to hold its own.”

The utility recently spent $3 million to expand its Johnson lift station, with the work and new equipment installed inside a fence of the facility, Ward said.

The expansion did not affect the field or the restoration, he said.

Springdale Water Utilities provides water and sewer service to the north half of Johnson.

Recently, Clear Creek looked more like a drainage ditch than a cool Ozark creek. Its banks were steep. The water was low and murky.

Chaney pointed to a drainage culvert running under a one-lane driveway. It separated the creek, he said.

“It stops fish passage,” Chaney explained. “A type of fish might travel downstream to eat, but upstream to spawn. The life cycle of any species living in the creek is dependent on the whole creek.”

“Stream-bank restoration is extremely complicated and extremely high risk,” Chaney said.

Engineers need to consider the width and depth of the creek when it’s stable, where the flood plain begins and ends.

The engineering plans from the Watershed Resource Center will give direction for restoring the stream bank — everything from removing gravel to planting a certain kind of tree at a particular point, Chaney said.

Keeping the sediment and phosphorus out of streams also makes it easier for the staff at the Springdale Waste Water Treatment Plant.