Water works

If you come down to the river …

It seems odd that the Illinois River Watershed would not be anywhere near Illinois, but the world’s full of mysteries.

The watershed, like almost all natural phenomena, doesn’t care where state lines are drawn, or what names we give the land and water; this particular natural phenomenon encompasses a lot of the eastern part of Oklahoma and the northwest part of Arkansas. Roughly speaking, it stretches as far east as Fayetteville and as far west as Tahlequah, Okla.

The Illinois River is important to this region of the country. It’s a popular waterway for canoeists, kayakers, campers, and people who think water is essential to life itself.

So it should come as no surprise that even though we’re about to become SEC rivals, the Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Division and the Oklahoma Conservation Commission are collaborating to build a computer model to help guide efforts to improve the river’s water quality.

The paper reports that these efforts will pinpoint where barriers to protect stream banks from erosion, or conservation easements of vegetation to soak up or slow runoff into streams, will do the most good. And hint/suggest other stuff. The work will allow efforts to move forward in a more intelligent way to better shield the river from both natural and chemical fertilizers, and maintain the river’s geologic integrity.

The difference between this and previous efforts, as well as the biggest improvement in data collection this model represents, is that it will collect data when it is hardest to gather and when it matters most: during floods.

Nobody’s in much of an emergency when the river is flowing slowly, and folks in canoes are sipping sodas and putting on suntan lotion. It’s when the rivers are raging that we mere humans are in danger. We need more information when the river becomes dangerous. And that’s when the most erosion occurs, and the most junk is deposited downstream.

With this model, hopefully both states will be taking a step forward in better understanding the factors that cause challenges for the river. Knowledge is power, they tell us.

In this case, knowledge is also money. This data collection will allow both states to better justify requests for grants and private donations to be used to actually address the factors that lead to the challenges.

It’s unclear on when exactly all this will take place in Hog Country, but the Sooner the better.