WEST SILOAM SPRINGS, Okla. — Improving water high quality within the Illinois River is the topic of a public meeting Jan. 24 hosted by Oklahoma and Arkansas pure useful resource safety companies.
The meeting is open to the public and can happen from 2 to 4:30 p.m. that day on the Cherokee Casino and Hotel in West Siloam Springs. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Division and the Oklahoma Conservation Commission will host the meeting.
It would be the second of three conferences being held as the 2 states’ companies replace the watershed-based administration plan for the Illinois River Watershed. Specifics for the third meeting have but to be introduced.
The watershed administration plan attracts up objectives and proposals for voluntary management of “nonpoint source” points with water high quality, comparable to erosion, livestock and poultry operations and stormwater runoff.
“Point source” issues, comparable to wastewater remedy for cities and business, are regulated by different state companies such because the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality.
Both city and rural residents of the river’s watershed are inspired to attend, mentioned Tate Wentz, Water Quality Section supervisor for the Arkansas Natural Resources Division, in a phone interview Friday. Topics will vary from agriculture and different rural points to stormwater runoff and garden administration in cities, with breakout teams for various matters, he mentioned.
“This is all voluntary, so we’ll be talking about ways to incentivize best practices,” Wentz mentioned.
Updating the administration plan is predicted to take a 12 months or extra, organizers have mentioned.
The upcoming meeting could have a video link for distant viewers, however the capacity for these viewers to take part is restricted, Wentz mentioned. Those who need to have an effect on the dialogue ought to plan to attend in particular person, he mentioned.
The first of the three deliberate conferences came about in October in Siloam Springs. Erosion issues took up a lot of the dialogue on the first meeting. Twenty acres of Northwest Arkansas erodes into the Illinois River and its tributaries yearly, individuals attending the October meeting have been advised.
The erosion downside is worse in Oklahoma, Shanon Phillips, director of the water high quality division of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, advised the October meeting. The watershed begins in Benton and Washington counties, going westward throughout the Oklahoma state line and thru Tenkiller Lake to the Arkansas River.
The 20-acre determine derives from erosion research at 15 totally different factors within the watershed, mentioned Leif Kindberg, government director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership. The partnership is a nonprofit group based mostly in Cave Springs and is devoted to bettering the standard of the watershed. The partnership entered a contract with Natural State Streams LLC of Little Rock to examine stream financial institution erosion. Natural State Streams is a personal agency providing environmental consulting and mapping providers and design for erosion management tasks.
The report got here out in September 2021, estimating 102,822 tons of sediment erode into the river and its tributaries yearly. Contributing components to the soil loss embrace higher-than-normal rainfall in recent times; clearing of bushes within the watershed; and tougher, quicker runoff as surfaces are paved or constructed over.
An estimated 54% of the phosphorus launched into the higher portion of the watershed comes from erosion now, in accordance to the examine. Phosphorus sources within the river have been a explanation for disagreement between Arkansas and Oklahoma for years. Phosphorus feeds blooms of algae that cloud the river and hurt different types of life in it. Efforts at eradicating hen litter from the watershed and different sources have led to a gradual drop in phosphorus ranges through the years, however progress has plateaued, Wentz advised the October meeting.
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