FAYETTEVILLE : New lake advisers meet
Posted on Friday, May 16, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/225839/
FAYETTEVILLE — An advisory group embarked Thursday on designing a management plan for the Beaver Lake watershed.
Fifteen members of the Beaver Lake Policy Advisory Group held an orientation meeting in downtown Fayetteville, with the eventual goal to make recommendations on how to protect Beaver Lake.
The Northwest Arkansas Council, a nonprofit agency that pushes economic development projects for the region, is behind the creation of the advisory group. The council, which selected the 20 members of the advisory group, raised $ 500, 000 to hire a consulting firm to complete the management plan.
In September 2007, John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods Inc. in Springdale, wrote Northwest Arkansas Council members asking for help raising the money.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has pledged $ 5, 000 to the Beaver Lake watershed study.
Walter E. Hussman Jr., president and chief executive officer of WEHCO Media Inc. and publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Northwest Arkansas Council.
The process to make recommendations and develop a watershed management plan is expected to take 12 to 18 months, said Barry Tonning, director of applied research at Tetra Tech, the Pasadena, Calif.-based consulting firm hired for the plan.
Tetra Tech has helped develop dozens of other water management plans across the country, including the Illinois River watershed in Washington and Benton counties.
The advisory group for the Beaver Lake watershed is expected to analyze issues that threaten the lake, including water quality, contamination, development and population growth and create ways to lessen the impact on the lake.
Tetra Tech will host focus groups to gather residents’ input and also public meetings to keep the public updated on what the advisory group determines to be issues and possible solutions.
Information from those meetings will be relayed back to the advisory group, said Kimberly Brewer, associate director of Tetra Tech.
Brewer said her firm met with members of the Northwest Arkansas Property Rights Association earlier this year and a group of conservationists on Thursday before the meeting.
The advisory group has no enforcement authority.
Scott Borman, an advisory group member and manager of Benton-Washington Regional Public Water Authority, commonly known as Two-Ton, said the meeting and the overarching goal is a preliminary effort to create something that will affect the region for years to come.
The biggest challenge will be balancing best-management practices with property rights advocates who have been adamant they will not support regulations that overly limit land use, he said.
Members of the Northwest Arkansas Property Rights Association need to be involved in the process, Borman added.
The group includes Hunter Haynes, a Rogers developer; Ed Clifford, Bentonville-Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce president; and Kevin Igli, senior vice president and chief environmental health and safety officer for Tyson Foods.
No date for the group’s next meeting was set, but it is expected to be in five to six weeks and will focus on setting measurable goals.