Dam removal and stream restoration - helping the environment repair itself

Daniel Dorn said:
I am familiar with this particular location. My parents live just up the hill from the lake, and I drive past it each time I visit them. I've never seen anyone fishing in it, but it does have some nice walking trails around it. I would love to see it returned to a clear-running stream, and that would help alleviate some of the flooding they have to deal with.

I'll be paying close attention to this subject.

Thanks for all you are doing!
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You are welcome Daniel. If your parents are aware of this issue and think we are on the right track, you might suggest to them that they get involved and lend their support to our restoration effort. All support is crucial and appreciated. To date the city has not engaged the citizens on this issue and kept it mostly behind closed doors. If they are computer literate, interested and have access, they can keep up with our efforts and latest news by watching our facebook page, Friends Of Little Sugar Creek. And the newspaper articles on the issue published by Mike Masterson who is a relative of the late Arkansas politician John Paul Hammerschmidt. He was instrumental in preventing the damming of the Buffalo River in NW Arkansas and getting it declared a Nation River, the first in the nation and one of the few free-flowing natural rivers in the State.
 
A note posted on our Arkansas Canoe Club website pertaining to the above mentioned Mr. Hammerschmidt and the Buffalo National River.

The Ozark River Stewards have proposed to host a remembrance of John Paul Hammerschmidt on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. We have reserved the pavilion at Ozark Access, and our tentative plans call for an informal gathering to honor the man for his part in protecting the river from becoming another project of the Army Corps of Engineers. This will be from 2 O'clock until perhaps 2:30 with some time to mingle and have refreshments. We will have note cards for anyone wishing to write a thank you note to his family for the legacy he left behind. Mike Masterson has said he will try his best to attend as well.

Then we are inviting all who wish to join us in a slow float from Ozark to Pruitt Landing. We plan to have streamers, banners and balloons and wildflowers to decorate the procession of boats.

As part of these plans, we would like to invite Ed Bethune, Former Senator Pryor, and others who worked with JPH to join us, and thought it would be lovely to be able to offer them seats on canoes or rafts so they could float this short but lovely section and be reminded of why it was (and is) important to protect it.

So we are looking for people to bring and captain canoes and/or rafts so that we may offer this as an option. I don't want to promise something I can't deliver! Can you help us find folks willing to do this? I'd also like to invite members of the press, and thought the odds of getting someone to cover it might go up if they were also offered a taste of what makes the Buffalo such a magical place.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions about what we are planning, and if you can help us with this plan, I would love to hear from you.

Gordon and several BRWA members have also expressed interest in helping and we are hoping to have representatives from the ACC and Friends of the Buffalo, Park proponents etc. come be a part of this on May 24th.

Thanks in advance,

Lin Wellford
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I probably have mentioned it before and if so, please excuse me for repeating it here. Old men do tend to repeat themselves. Old men do tend to repeat themselves. :D

The story of the Buffalo National River is epic and I was there. As a young teen I canoed that river and my truck had bumper stickers, "Dam the COrps, not the river" and "Keep Busy" with a beaver wearing a corps of Engineers hardhat. They planned to dam the river in two places making long, narrow lakes which would have flooded some majestic scenery and historic sites without providing any real benefit to the public. The effort to defeat the plans was led by a kindly philanthropic pediatrician, Dr. Compton. He worked tirelessly for years enlisting aid from residents, citizens of the state and politicians as well as environmental advocates, small businesses, media and a host of others. It was a long battle hard fought. In the end, Congressman J.P. Hammerschmidt was able to garner national attention to the uniqueness of the river and it's environment and in 1972 the President signed a bill making the river our first National River, a National Park administered by the NPS. By the way, for his successful efforts in saving the Buffalo River, Dr. Compton is a fondly remembered resident of... Bentonville.

By the way if you are interested in more on the story of BNR and the heroes who saved it, visit the facebook page Keep The Buffalo National River Clean and Pristine. There is a current battle going on to stop the river from being polluted by hog factory farms owned by Cargill, CAFO's. One has already been built just up a tributary at Mt. Judea and via the efforts of many people, the site and tributary is under close watch and testing for pollution runoff. And a bill has been signed into law stopping the building of subsequent CAFOs in the BNR watershed. This, by the way, is the same karst geology that underlies Little Sugar Creek and the Lake Bella Vista dam. So in this way the conservation efforts are directly connected.
 
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Codger, how many acre feet are retained by the dam? How deep is the reservoir at it deepest?
 
I don't have the normal pool gallonage or surface area, The lake is shallow and small. The dam is about 14' tall less the siltation. And as stated earlier, there are another 20 or so sizable lakes and impoundments in this county alone.
 
The reason I ask pertains too the obvious stagnation that exists. What has been the method of dealing with excess overflow?
 
It flows over the top of the dam/walkway pavement seen in the pictures. And there are some operable floodgates when they aren't blocked. I think they got one open during this last overtopping event.
 
Ya, I'm full of questions. Btw, I agree with you, i'm just trying to wrap my head around the cities reasoning. Are there any farmers or residents that pump water from the lake/pond? Would removing the dam effect their irrigation methods?
 
Nah, it isn't a water supply for irrigation or drinking or useful in flood control. As said, it's only original purpose was recreational. And it has failed at even that. You might estimate the size using the landscape architect's layout on the earlier page as it includes a scale and the current lake normal pool outline.
 
Didn't realize that the Buffalo River was the first National River. The late 60's is really when the environmental movement took off. Personally I think there is a balance that needs to be found between development and preservation. One only needs to look at the White River and Bull Shoals. That is essentially what would have happened to the Buffalo River had it not been preserved. Basically they took a warm water fishery and made it into a cold water fishery with the lake. The same thing has been essentially been done with the Tennessee River watershed but with more limited cold water fisheries created with the dams. The purpose of the TVA effort was primarily flood control and economic development. An aside to it was electrical power to be provided to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Alcoa (War time effort) just like the Colorado (Hoover Dam) electric generation was the dominant power source for nuclear development in the west.
 
Finally, after six years of continuing efforts, the court has found that there is no deed restriction requiring the lake and dam be maintained in perpetuity. The path forward to final removal of the failed dam structure and restoration of a clean free flowing Ozark stream is clear. Phase two of the effort begins. Public/private partnership for restoration and rethinking the existing park to become a public asset instead of a liability.
 
Codger_64 said:
Finally, after six years of continuing efforts, the court has found that there is no deed restriction requiring the lake and dam be maintained in perpetuity. The path forward to final removal of the failed dam structure and restoration of a clean free flowing Ozark stream is clear. Phase two of the effort begins. Public/private partnership for restoration and rethinking the existing park to become a public asset instead of a liability.
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Six years to get to this point. Dealing with government is certainly an exercise in patience. Good for you and your group. Your perseverance is paying off.
The low head dam I spoke of earlier in this thread is still there and Army Corp of Engineers wont even test the silt behind the dam for PCB's, their reason for not removing it. It got another fisherman this year and almost got the diver searching for him. --KV
 
Two things will happen if you remove a big dam: 1) you will no longer be able to control water level downstream and 2) you will have increased silting at the slow parts of the river and at the mouth. If you can live with those two, then fine. Still, a dam is a mighty useful piece of engineering.
 
Out of curiosity, why is a beaver dam across a creek wonderful, providing biodiversity etc but a man made dam across a creek a terrible thing? I dont mean to criticize this project, just curious.
 
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