The grades are in

If you didn’t visit the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance website last week and see the enormous infestation of algae blooming along a section of the country’s first national river, the pictures are still there as proof of the muck stretching from Gilbert to South Maumee.

This section of the Buffalo has been a scenic and popular float that attracts thousands of tourists and the more than $50 million they leave behind annually.

Here’s how Carol Bitting, one of the photographers, described her experience: “This stretch is 11½ miles. This first photo actually shows gravel, but at one point I mentioned I hadn’t seen a rock or gravel for miles except along the shoreline.

“There were places the smell was musty. I was quick to move on out. Most places, this algae is several feet thick. At one place I saw an algae tower 4 feet deep jutting out of the water. … Ninety percent of our float looked like this. Fish swim along the top or through it. I can’t imagine what they do for oxygen at night.

“We at times found ourselves with only a few feet of opening to paddle through. This algae will bring your canoe to a stop. I’m embarrassed our state is exhibiting so much ignorance.”

The truth is Mrs. Bitting is far from the only one who sees the serious problems our state has with properly monitoring water quality in all its creeks and rivers.

Think I’m exaggerating? Read the latest investigative report from the Izaak Walton League of America. The respected organization was formed in 1922 to protect and defend water, soil, air, woods and wildlife in America.

Among other findings in its nationwide examination of water quality, the league gave our state and its performance in monitoring the health of rivers and creeks an overall D+. The fundamental responsibility for achieving this mission under the Clean Water Act lies with our Department of Environmental Quality (cough).

Here’s just a portion of what the investigation discovered. See it all at tinyurl.com/gs5sv5q.

While our state reports it tests the quality in 11 percent of our 120,000 miles of streams and rivers, the league calculated that the number is actually 3 percent. In order to assess water quality, Arkansas needs to significantly increase the number of permanent monitoring stations where data is collected annually. That means increasing from the present 150 such stations to 4,892, the report said.

The present state of affairs also means most Arkansas streams go untested altogether and “call into question whether these waters meet basic water quality standards,” the league said.

Arkansas’ report claiming 55 percent of our streams reportedly test clean smells downright “fishy,” said the league. It found not only does Arkansas have comparatively weak water quality standards and woefully inadequate testing sites, but is are guilty of using out-of-date information in reports.

The largest number of pollutants discovered in our tested streams are from nutrients/sediment (phosphorus from agricultural waste and fertilizer runoff cause algae blooms), salts, toxic metals, bacteria and lead.

“Arkansas relies on water quality data that is up to six years old,” the report said, “and presents the information in biennial reports to the U.S. EPA as if it were current. Pollution spills can cause fish kills in just a few days—or just a few hours—and rapid development brings new threats to water quality every year. Arkansas residents cannot trust the safety of their waterways to out of date information.”

For overall water quality standards, the Walton League investigators award Arkansas a pitiful D+. Here’s why: “When a state identifies ‘impaired’ waters, it is comparing monitoring results with standards the state sets for how clean public waters need to be for uses such as fishing or swimming. If water quality standards are weak, it’s easy to meet them.

“Arkansas has strong standards for pH. However, the state’s standards for nutrient pollution—the greatest threat to the health of America’s waterways today—are weak. In fact, Arkansas only has narrative standards for total nitrogen and total phosphorus, not numeric standards. The state’s standards for bacteria are weak compared with U.S. EPA’s minimum guidelines for safe human contact, and its dissolved oxygen standards are weak as well.” Shazam! What a coincidence. Readers may recall from the 10,000 or so columns I’ve written about the controversial hog factory at Mount Judea that the primary concern of those who care about preserving the cleanliness of our Buffalo River involve these very issues.

I’m speaking of the possibility of pollution from nutrient overload generated by the daily raw waste from 6,500 hogs at the swine factory our Department of Environmental Quality wrongheadedly permitted into the river’s environmentally fragile watershed, along with elevated E. coli bacteria counts from animal waste and low dissolved oxygen levels vital to aquatic life.

We can do so much better.