So many ways to help

Environmental activism always needs troops on ground

Recently a newcomer to Northwest Arkansas contacted me to talk about environmental organizations and issues. It’s pretty exciting when someone actually holds a hand to volunteer to put more on their plate than they already have. To help narrow down whether a person has a general interest or a hot passion for a topic, I usually mention there has long been a wide spectrum of groups in the area focused on multiple environmental concerns.

Land preservation, water quality, bird and wildlife protection, watershed and river issues, pollution cleanups, solid waste and recycling problems, climate change, green infrastructure, tree planting, energy choices, population growth, ocean degradation, chemical spills, invasive species and development’s impacts on forests, wetlands, and prairies are just a few areas of environmental concerns needing citizen involvement. I try not to appear too eager, but am tempted to say, “So, pick one!” because I remember well my first environmental plunge.

It happened in my naive college days. As I walked through the university union, I spotted a “Save the Buffalo” poster in the hallway. Little did I realize the genial smile on the faces of the elders at the information table hid the steely determination in their souls.

At that encounter I learned it wasn’t the woolly beasts of the prairie they were proposing to save, but a river a couple of counties to the east of Fayetteville. These folks were members of the Ozark Society, an organization begun to resist the threat to the free-flowing Buffalo River from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ damming plans.

Neil Compton, a medical doctor from Bentonville, aware that dams there would destroy Arkansas’ most beautiful river, wrote his friend Ken Smith in 1961: “I am considering the possibility of starting a region-wide organization to engage in all matters relating to ecological problems such as we now have.” It took Compton and an army of river warriors 10 long years after founding the Ozark Society to earn protective status for the river. Those people are the reason that river still flows in the Ozarks. And, along with other organizations, like the Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, the Ozark Society continues to actively watch out for challenges that again and again arise to threaten the river’s integrity.

Because of their variety of conservation, education and recreation activities combining activism with enjoying life by taking hikes and floating rivers, I thought I’d mention the Ozark Society to the newcomer to help sort out his main interests.

The organization notifies its membership of needed written public comments to environmental issues and of hearings to attend.

One example in recent months was whether the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality should issue permits for the spreading of liquid bio-solid industrial waste, containing chemicals and who knows what else, on land already overloaded with nutrients. Thankfully, so far none of the permits have been approved.

Also, the U.S. Forest Service held a comment period about a metallurgical coal mine application, the Heavener Project, to access 3,077 acres under Ouachita National Forest land. This coal would be used in steel industry blast furnaces, some located on the other side of the world where our nation’s pollution control standards do not apply. This makes no economic or environmental sense on an increasingly warming planet (a ton of burned coal produces over 2 tons of carbon dioxide). About 50 public comments were made, many from Ozark Society members. So far no decisions have been announced.

Additionally, the organization has a Community Engagement Committee, which qualifies candidates for their Youth Grants program “with the goal of instilling conservation values in the next generation.” There is also an effort to collect oral histories from those who have been part of saving Ozark natural areas. There are newsletters, outings and events calendars, and a documentary film online (https://www.ozarksociety.net). Also a music CD, trail maps and books on nature and the Ozarks can be ordered from their website.

The first line in the foreword to his book “The Battle for the Buffalo River,” Neil Compton wrote: “The struggle to save the Buffalo River … brought to the fore manifestations of a worldwide plague generated by the hand and mind of man. If we in our great wisdom cannot develop insight enough to control that affliction, we might well become the principal agents in the ruination of our only possible home in the universe. “

If we each, like Neil, would do something for our planet, those collective actions could make all the difference in protecting our collective futures.