The region’s lifeblood

Clean water vital to NWA thriving

When it comes to things we all take for granted, clean water has got to rank pretty high. For example, all the folks from Northwest Arkansas setting out this and every summer for the beaches of the Gulf Coast point their Suburbans and vans south without giving the presence of beautiful sand shorelines and clear waters a second thought. It’s even easy to forget 2010, when an oil rig explosion in the Gulf sent millions of gallons of oil toward beaches and marshes of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. There was no taking the beaches for granted that year.

Closer to home, more than 350,000 people living in Northwest Arkansas go to their sinks and tubs every day never doubting clean water from Beaver Lake will flow with the simple turn of a knob.

But clean water takes work. It either demands work on the front end to prevent polluting of the waters or it requires work — expensive work — on the back end to make polluted water clean again.

While most folks living and working in the region can afford to take water quality for granted, there are those who are concerned every day with ways to make sure Northwest Arkansas’ population growth and development isn’t permitted to spoil the creeks, streams, rivers and lakes people have enjoyed for so long. Experts, for example, are working up an Upper White River watershed management plan to identify voluntary ways landowners, businesses, utilities and others can avoid behaviors that can do lasting damage to the region’s waterways.

In Arkansas, the watershed involves all or parts of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Newton, Boone and Franklin counties.

The level of contaminants, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, in the White River watershed is growing, said Lane Crider, chief executive officer of the Beaver Water District. Such nutrients can promote algae blooms that are harmful to humans and animals. The city of Fayetteville for years has fought the presence of algae in its Lake Fayetteville, forcing “no contact” orders designed to keep people and pets from becoming ill.

“What keeps me up at night is the increasing nutrient loads,” Crider said at a recent meeting to discuss the management plan. “If we have the right amount of nutrients and the right amount of sunlight we could have enough cyano-toxins that we might have a ‘Do not drink’ order in Beaver Lake. Can you imagine what that would mean? We provide drinking water to 400,000 area residents. What would they do? All the poultry plants would have to shut down. That would be a catastrophic day.”

Such a doomsday seems almost impossible because of the abundance of clean water Northwest Arkansas is used to having. But consider the growth of the region, too: More yards being fertilized. More natural spaces, which serve as filters as rainwater makes its way toward waterways, are disrupted. More impervious surfaces can increase how much water flows when rains fall and how fast it moves. Fast-moving water can intensify erosion, adding unhealthy sediment to bodies of water.

Not to be ignored is industry, including agriculture. Arkansas’ poultry industry has been at the center of litigation since 2005 by the state of Oklahoma because of the impact poultry waste has on water quality. A federal judge found poultry companies contributed to the pollution of the Illinois River, which originates in Arkansas but travels westward into Oklahoma. On June 9, Oklahoma and 11 poultry companies requested a mediator to seek out terms of a settlement.

Poultry farmers and plants help feed the nation and employ thousands. But if one considers Crider’s comment, what goes around will eventually come around. In other words, doing harm to the environment isn’t in anyone’s long-term interests, even though it may seem so in the short term.

The request for a mediator is good news for the prospect of turning the longstanding litigation into real action that makes a difference in the way waterways are protected.

Northwest Arkansas’ entrepreneurial, creative spirit is often touted in promoting economic growth. And we believe it exists. But that’s also the spirit that’s going to be necessary to aggressively address growth’s impact on the natural environment and ways to mitigate it.

With all the amenities that make living in this region so special, none of them measure up to the importance of clean water. Let’s stop taking it for granted.