‘What Saudi Arabia is to oil, the Ozarks are to water’
Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2008
BENTONVILLE - The Multi-Basin Regional Water Council held an educational session about Beaver Lake and other area watersheds at the Bentonville Public Library on Friday morning.
The first speaker for Friday's session was Dr. John Moore, executive director of the Upper White River Basin Foundation, who emphasized the importance of sustaining and protecting the area's watersheds, which include Beaver Lake, Bull Shoals Lake, Lake Taneycomo and Table Rock Lake.
"A colleague of mine once said, ' What Saudi Arabia is to oil, the Ozarks are to water, ' and I could not agree with him more," Moore said.
"Our work (with the Upper White River Basin Foundation ) is to sustain that resource and by sustain, I mean our responsible use and enjoyment of that resource to assure that resource is going to be there for our children and grandchildren," Moore said.
Missions of the Upper White River Basin Foundation include educating the public as to what they can do to ensure the water supply is healthy and sustainable, to monitor and report water-quality information to the public and to act as an umbrella agency for smaller organizations charged with protecting watersheds. The Multi-Basin Regional Water Council in Rogers is one such organization.
A problem that Moore pointed out is that there is no constant monitoring for water quality in the area.
"We have episodic kinds of monitoring. We do not have a systematic way of doing that, that provides a scientific down-to-earth way of explaining things in terms of the water so that people understand," Moore said.
To rectify the problem, Moore and the Upper White River Basin Foundation are leading the charge to create the reports. In fact, the foundation began monitoring areas along the White River, including Beaver Lake and War Eagle Creek, earlier this year. The group's first report on the state of the water is slated to be issued in late September.
That report will include the results of a telephone survey conducted to assess public opinions about the watershed.
The next step for the Upper White River Basin Foundation will be to conduct a study on the macro invertebrates," the creatures who live under the rocks," because they play a large role in sustaining the environment, in addition to examining the White River's geomorphology, Moore said.
"Collecting this data will help us to answer the question, how is the water ? "Moore said.
A major goal of the Upper White River Basin Foundation, as well as the area's Multi-Basin Regional Water Council, is to promote public awareness of Beaver Lake to ensure that the lake will remain in good condition for years to come.
"If our water goes bad, people will quit coming to this area," Moore said.
"People have put new pressures on our watersheds, from wastewater treatment plants to agriculture to the runoffs from our developments. One of our great challenges is, how do we create a shift; how do we make things sustainable so we can reuse them ? "Moore said.
Also speaking at the meeting was Ray West, a water-quality specialist from the city of Tulsa, who has been tackling a problem with zebra mussels in Tulsa's lakes for years.
Zebra mussels are a highly invasive species that are not indigenous to the area. Roughly the size of a fingernail, with a yellow or brownish shell with alternating color bands, zebra mussels pose a threat to the area's lakes, including Beaver Lake, because the mussels attach to things in the lake and multiply rapidly.
"Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to get rid of them. You just have to continue to manually clean them out," West said.
"Usually when you see them, it is too late to stop them," West said.
The best way to try to stop the zebra mussels from entering Beaver Lake is to exercise preventative measures now. Those measures include the following: • Drain bilge water, live wells and bait buckets after you have been on a lake. • Leave all bait behind. • Inspect boats and trailers for zebra mussels. • Scrape off any zebra mussels you find. • Dry the boat and trailer for one week before entering another water source. • Wash the boat and trailer with 140-degree water, 10 percent household bleach and water solution, or a hot saltwater solution. • Do not wash boats at the ramp.
For more information on the Upper White River Basin Foundation, visit www. uwrb. org. Go to www. 100 thmeridian. org for more information on zebra mussels.
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