Letter to Editor Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Agency must do job

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality put out a press release last month announcing that long stretches of the Buffalo River and Big Creek, one of the largest tributaries of the Buffalo, are "impaired." For those not fluent in bureaucratic language, "impaired" means polluted. The Buffalo River, Arkansas' best known scenic river and biggest tourist attraction, is polluted. In parts of the river system there is no longer enough dissolved oxygen in the water to support a healthy aquatic ecosystem (no fish) and there are so many pathogenic bacteria in the water that no one should allow their children to swim in it. The Arkansas Department of Health is now reporting that it may not be safe for my dog to swim in some sections of the river.

This information is not news to the people who live and work on the river or to the scientists who monitor its water quality. The news is that the state has finally admitted that the river is polluted, and water quality is getting worse.

Sadly, in the same press release, the agency announced that it plans to do absolutely nothing about the pollution. The excuse for doing nothing to correct this environmental and economic disaster that it allowed to happen is that there is a watershed management plan already in place for the Buffalo River. The plan is a collection of voluntary suggestions put together by a loosely organized group of volunteer landowners and non-government organizations and state and federal agencies. The Buffalo River plan specifically does not provide any way of preventing or reducing pollution of the river other than unenforceable voluntary recommendations. Cleaning up the Buffalo River is the job of the Department of Environmental Quality and so far, it is refusing to do it.

Does the agency not care enough about the Buffalo River to start working on a solution to this situation, or is it hoping the federal government will step in and do the job?

BRAD TAYLOR

Parthenon