Friday, December 4, 2009
Verbesina virginica among several species that serve in winter as ice plants! Find it early mornings in a variety of places in addition to World Peace Wetland Prairie
Please click on images to ENLARGE photo. Ice-plant displays are like snowflakes. No two are alike. Drive along roads with ditches that have not been mowed back all the way and spot Verbesina virginica with ice around its base on cold, clear mornings. ANOTHER REASON NOT to mow roadsides and old prairie areas. Sometimes, if the mowers haven't cut close to the ground but have taken off the tops of the often 6-foot-tall plants, the ice formations may be spotted by carefully watching for short stem remains.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Master Naturalists gaining support among young people in Arkansas
NWAOnline.com
Masters of the biosphere
A corps of trained Naturalists bolster the state park system
By Bobby Ampezzan
Monday, November 30, 2009
LITTLE ROCK — Talking to Anne Massey of the fledgling Arkansas Master Naturalists must be something like meeting with Tom Hayden in Ann Arbor back in 1962, right after his Students for a Democratic Society held its first convention but before it really took off.
Don’t misunderstand - the Master Naturalists aren’t planning a sit-in beneath the Capitol dome. But the group’s president wants their ambition to be that infectious, and actually, she hopes “the government” will lean on it for assistance eventually.
“I was president of the Junior League of Little Rock,” says Massey, a woman who barely tips 100 pounds but whose favorite outdoor tool is a 6-foot pry for uprooting trees. “My expertise came from developing volunteers.”
The Central Arkansas Master Naturalists formed in 2005 under the auspices of Tom Neale, a longtime Texas Master Naturalist. Their mission is to serve public park systems through education, cleanups, biodiversity surveys, water monitoring and infrastructure projects such as trail building and maintenance. Massey was in Neale’s first Naturalists class in Arkansas.
“The first year [of Central Arkansas Master Naturalists], I took the class. The second year, I planned the curriculum. And ever since I’ve been opening new chapters.”
In January, she rallied recruits in Northwest Arkansas at the Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, and in north-central Arkansas at Bull Shoals White River State Park. The first Northwest Arkansas class had 38 graduates.
Next January, she expects to schedule classes and open chapters in the Arkansas River Valley (including Petit Jean, Mount Nebo, Mount Magazine and Lake Dardanelle state parks) and at Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area. To do it she must have at least 15 interested people. Any fewer could be a waste of instructors’ time, she says.
This time, gathering such a quorum will try all of her organizing powers.
WHAT AM I GETTING MYSELF INTO?
Last month, Massey and two of her favorite factotums, Bert Turner and Bill Toland, set off from the parking lot of Fresh Market in west Little Rock and made the mostly two-lane trip to the Cossatot River, just north of Dierks and De Queen.
At a McDonald’s, Turner set two travel mugs down on the counter and waited for coffee. An unwitting server placed two full styrofoam cups of joe next to the mugs.
“We were trying to save you two cups,” Turner barked. “We’re environmentalists!”
Were Turner a softer man, his admonition might have vanished amid the buzzers and popping grease. He is not. A retired Air Force captain,Turner is a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm. His words dance in the air like a hammer.
Later, in the car, a golf ball came bounding straight down the interstate as if launched from an overpass.
“More litter,” Massey said.
“Eighty percent of our litter is caused by 1 percent of the people, but only one-half percent of the rest do anything about it,” Toland mused. “You go back in Arkansas history, they didn’t have trash pickup” for much of the 20th century.
Welcome to this group. Other disappointments include privet, Japanese honeysuckle and the small and outdated Pinnacle Mountain State Park Visitors Center (compared to other state park visitor centers across the state).
Oh, there are plenty of delights, too. Just consider the great horned owl.
“Did you know the great horned owl is the only predator that will eat a skunk?” Toland asked the others.
This and other, probably more useful facts are all part of the billet. The Naturalists are a group of bookish outdoor enthusiasts who see the terrain as an organic museum and laboratory whose secrets need no more than a shout out from a trained guide.
That’s what they aim to be - trained guide, lab technician, museum curator.
CAN I CALL MYSELF A TRAILBLAZER?
To become a certified Master Naturalist, volunteers take at least 40 hours of in-depth natural science education on about 20 topics at Pinnacle Mountain State Park or nature centers throughout the state. (This year, there are 87 hours of instruction scheduled.)
In return, they agree to volunteer at least 40 hours in the community, at a state park or school, or for the Boy Scouts, 4-H or other youth groups. Volunteers can also put in their hours in activities like maintaining or building trails.
After their first year, Naturalists must complete 40 volunteer hours and eight advanced-training hours in each calendar year to remain certified.
This instruction isn’t like your high school trigonometry units. The classes have cool names like ichthyology, herpetology, entomology, mycology, and behind the Latin roots lurk the state’s official fish (volatilis cattuspiscis), the cottonmouth, the chigger, the psilocybin mushroom.
There’s instruction on the state parks system and Arkansas forest ecology, and survival classes such as how to build a shelter out of tree boughs before the feral dogs close in.
One of the chief duties Turner and Toland take on is trail building. With topographic maps, GPS and an inclinometer, the trailblazers set off along some public land and create a smooth walking trail where once there was only untrammeled forest floor.
“Most people think a trail is a [worn path],” Turner said. “What we focus on is making it sustainable. No puddles, erosion. There’s specification on the out-slope of the trail. It should be [a slope of] 5 to 6 percent so rain sheets off ... and 42 inches [wide] is what we shoot for.”
The two walk the proposed trail route several times. They might tweak the layout so it hugs an interesting rock outcropping. The hard work of building a trail includes raking and cutting away roots and unseating large rocks with the help of pry bars, and reshaping the sides of slopes with pickaxes.
Sound Herculean? It is in a way. Turner and Toland estimate that they can build a trail at a rate of 10 yards per man hour. When the two took on the 1.5-mile extension of the Pinnacle Mountain State Park base trail two years ago, it took three months and a team of volunteers.
“We get to see every animal, every plant, everything there is out there,” Turner said. “Tell you the truth, we get a lot of ‘Thank-yous’ out there.
“No, we do.”
DOES THE COSSATOT NEED ME?
At the Cossatot, Park Interpreter Steve Walker directs Massey, Turner, Toland and Ralph Weber of Bentonville along a switchback that leads from the visitor center down a couple of hundred feet to the river below. The trail’s covered with debris, and standing water also impedes hikers.
For a couple of hours the serenity among the Shumardoak and the bitternut hickory is broken by the blare of a backpack blower and the whir of a Stihl chain saw. The group rakes and chips at the ground, correcting the grade in places and smoothing it all out.
Does the park need a cadre of protectors, i.e., a Master Naturalists chapter of its own?
“No,” Walker says, “this area of the state just doesn’t have a lot going on, so we’re just trying to get stuff going on for the people.”
The park doesn’t need the work. It wants the interest.
Dorothy Cooney is interested. A 61-year-old Texas transplant, the Wickes resident called the potential kickoff of the Cossatot chapter “a well-kept secret.” For her, the volunteer duties are incidental.
“These classes, they are very detailed about the ecology of the area - animals, plants, weather, soil, water. I have a master’s degree, but the Master Naturalist program is one of the best classes I’ve ever had.”
When Toland retired in 2006 and settled in Little Rock, he intended to volunteer with Heifer International, a group with a mission he adores, but the work itself was unfulfilling.
“All of a sudden, there was an article about Master Naturalists in [the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]. I thought, ‘This is exactly what I want to do.’ I sent in my application the very first day [for new class enrollment].
“This organization, there’s so many ... things to do you can’t get bored.”
Along with trail building, teams monitor for stream pollution, count birds and take deer surveys at night for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Naturalists lead schoolchildren into the woods and show them salamanders, snakes and crawdads - a kind of thrill Wii has yet to replicate.
The Bull Shoals White River State Park chapter is poised to record an entire inventory of plant and animal species in the river basin, says President Dwan Garrison, a project that will be a multi-year undertaking.
In the car on the ride home, Toland says that earlier this year, Texas Master Naturalists organization recorded its 1 millionth volunteer service hour. That group is twice as old - 10 - as this one, and has nearly three dozen chapters.
Massey says she hopes to add two chapters a year, an ambitious plan. And then, Toland says, “we can really start doing some serious things.”
Like holding sit-ins beneath the Capitol dome!
“Like a lot of activities with a lot of state parks to where the state park people, when they get together, they think of Master Naturalists as a vital part of their mission.”
Oh, cooperate with the Man. Right.
More information about Arkansas Master Naturalists’ new chapters and the training program is at home.arkansasmasternaturalists. org.
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 11/30/2009
Masters of the biosphere
A corps of trained Naturalists bolster the state park system
By Bobby Ampezzan
Monday, November 30, 2009
LITTLE ROCK — Talking to Anne Massey of the fledgling Arkansas Master Naturalists must be something like meeting with Tom Hayden in Ann Arbor back in 1962, right after his Students for a Democratic Society held its first convention but before it really took off.
Don’t misunderstand - the Master Naturalists aren’t planning a sit-in beneath the Capitol dome. But the group’s president wants their ambition to be that infectious, and actually, she hopes “the government” will lean on it for assistance eventually.
“I was president of the Junior League of Little Rock,” says Massey, a woman who barely tips 100 pounds but whose favorite outdoor tool is a 6-foot pry for uprooting trees. “My expertise came from developing volunteers.”
The Central Arkansas Master Naturalists formed in 2005 under the auspices of Tom Neale, a longtime Texas Master Naturalist. Their mission is to serve public park systems through education, cleanups, biodiversity surveys, water monitoring and infrastructure projects such as trail building and maintenance. Massey was in Neale’s first Naturalists class in Arkansas.
“The first year [of Central Arkansas Master Naturalists], I took the class. The second year, I planned the curriculum. And ever since I’ve been opening new chapters.”
In January, she rallied recruits in Northwest Arkansas at the Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, and in north-central Arkansas at Bull Shoals White River State Park. The first Northwest Arkansas class had 38 graduates.
Next January, she expects to schedule classes and open chapters in the Arkansas River Valley (including Petit Jean, Mount Nebo, Mount Magazine and Lake Dardanelle state parks) and at Cossatot River State Park-Natural Area. To do it she must have at least 15 interested people. Any fewer could be a waste of instructors’ time, she says.
This time, gathering such a quorum will try all of her organizing powers.
WHAT AM I GETTING MYSELF INTO?
Last month, Massey and two of her favorite factotums, Bert Turner and Bill Toland, set off from the parking lot of Fresh Market in west Little Rock and made the mostly two-lane trip to the Cossatot River, just north of Dierks and De Queen.
At a McDonald’s, Turner set two travel mugs down on the counter and waited for coffee. An unwitting server placed two full styrofoam cups of joe next to the mugs.
“We were trying to save you two cups,” Turner barked. “We’re environmentalists!”
Were Turner a softer man, his admonition might have vanished amid the buzzers and popping grease. He is not. A retired Air Force captain,Turner is a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm. His words dance in the air like a hammer.
Later, in the car, a golf ball came bounding straight down the interstate as if launched from an overpass.
“More litter,” Massey said.
“Eighty percent of our litter is caused by 1 percent of the people, but only one-half percent of the rest do anything about it,” Toland mused. “You go back in Arkansas history, they didn’t have trash pickup” for much of the 20th century.
Welcome to this group. Other disappointments include privet, Japanese honeysuckle and the small and outdated Pinnacle Mountain State Park Visitors Center (compared to other state park visitor centers across the state).
Oh, there are plenty of delights, too. Just consider the great horned owl.
“Did you know the great horned owl is the only predator that will eat a skunk?” Toland asked the others.
This and other, probably more useful facts are all part of the billet. The Naturalists are a group of bookish outdoor enthusiasts who see the terrain as an organic museum and laboratory whose secrets need no more than a shout out from a trained guide.
That’s what they aim to be - trained guide, lab technician, museum curator.
CAN I CALL MYSELF A TRAILBLAZER?
To become a certified Master Naturalist, volunteers take at least 40 hours of in-depth natural science education on about 20 topics at Pinnacle Mountain State Park or nature centers throughout the state. (This year, there are 87 hours of instruction scheduled.)
In return, they agree to volunteer at least 40 hours in the community, at a state park or school, or for the Boy Scouts, 4-H or other youth groups. Volunteers can also put in their hours in activities like maintaining or building trails.
After their first year, Naturalists must complete 40 volunteer hours and eight advanced-training hours in each calendar year to remain certified.
This instruction isn’t like your high school trigonometry units. The classes have cool names like ichthyology, herpetology, entomology, mycology, and behind the Latin roots lurk the state’s official fish (volatilis cattuspiscis), the cottonmouth, the chigger, the psilocybin mushroom.
There’s instruction on the state parks system and Arkansas forest ecology, and survival classes such as how to build a shelter out of tree boughs before the feral dogs close in.
One of the chief duties Turner and Toland take on is trail building. With topographic maps, GPS and an inclinometer, the trailblazers set off along some public land and create a smooth walking trail where once there was only untrammeled forest floor.
“Most people think a trail is a [worn path],” Turner said. “What we focus on is making it sustainable. No puddles, erosion. There’s specification on the out-slope of the trail. It should be [a slope of] 5 to 6 percent so rain sheets off ... and 42 inches [wide] is what we shoot for.”
The two walk the proposed trail route several times. They might tweak the layout so it hugs an interesting rock outcropping. The hard work of building a trail includes raking and cutting away roots and unseating large rocks with the help of pry bars, and reshaping the sides of slopes with pickaxes.
Sound Herculean? It is in a way. Turner and Toland estimate that they can build a trail at a rate of 10 yards per man hour. When the two took on the 1.5-mile extension of the Pinnacle Mountain State Park base trail two years ago, it took three months and a team of volunteers.
“We get to see every animal, every plant, everything there is out there,” Turner said. “Tell you the truth, we get a lot of ‘Thank-yous’ out there.
“No, we do.”
DOES THE COSSATOT NEED ME?
At the Cossatot, Park Interpreter Steve Walker directs Massey, Turner, Toland and Ralph Weber of Bentonville along a switchback that leads from the visitor center down a couple of hundred feet to the river below. The trail’s covered with debris, and standing water also impedes hikers.
For a couple of hours the serenity among the Shumardoak and the bitternut hickory is broken by the blare of a backpack blower and the whir of a Stihl chain saw. The group rakes and chips at the ground, correcting the grade in places and smoothing it all out.
Does the park need a cadre of protectors, i.e., a Master Naturalists chapter of its own?
“No,” Walker says, “this area of the state just doesn’t have a lot going on, so we’re just trying to get stuff going on for the people.”
The park doesn’t need the work. It wants the interest.
Dorothy Cooney is interested. A 61-year-old Texas transplant, the Wickes resident called the potential kickoff of the Cossatot chapter “a well-kept secret.” For her, the volunteer duties are incidental.
“These classes, they are very detailed about the ecology of the area - animals, plants, weather, soil, water. I have a master’s degree, but the Master Naturalist program is one of the best classes I’ve ever had.”
When Toland retired in 2006 and settled in Little Rock, he intended to volunteer with Heifer International, a group with a mission he adores, but the work itself was unfulfilling.
“All of a sudden, there was an article about Master Naturalists in [the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]. I thought, ‘This is exactly what I want to do.’ I sent in my application the very first day [for new class enrollment].
“This organization, there’s so many ... things to do you can’t get bored.”
Along with trail building, teams monitor for stream pollution, count birds and take deer surveys at night for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Naturalists lead schoolchildren into the woods and show them salamanders, snakes and crawdads - a kind of thrill Wii has yet to replicate.
The Bull Shoals White River State Park chapter is poised to record an entire inventory of plant and animal species in the river basin, says President Dwan Garrison, a project that will be a multi-year undertaking.
In the car on the ride home, Toland says that earlier this year, Texas Master Naturalists organization recorded its 1 millionth volunteer service hour. That group is twice as old - 10 - as this one, and has nearly three dozen chapters.
Massey says she hopes to add two chapters a year, an ambitious plan. And then, Toland says, “we can really start doing some serious things.”
Like holding sit-ins beneath the Capitol dome!
“Like a lot of activities with a lot of state parks to where the state park people, when they get together, they think of Master Naturalists as a vital part of their mission.”
Oh, cooperate with the Man. Right.
More information about Arkansas Master Naturalists’ new chapters and the training program is at home.arkansasmasternaturalists. org.
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 11/30/2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Natural Resources Conservation Service contractors use Bobcat loader in the bed of the Town Branch without permission on day major watershed-protection news announced
Please click on image to go to Flickr site and enlarge and search for related photos and information.
What part of NO don't these guys understand?
The living things in a half mile of this urban tributary of the West Fork of the White River were displaced and their habitat damaged for four days in November 2009 with no apology.
On the day that these photos were taken, the NRCS announced a huge effort to improve water quality in many states, including Arkansas. How does treating the riparian zones of Fayetteville's tributaries of the White River and the Illinois River watersheds make sense when the agency's overall mission includes protecting and enhancing such areas?
Release No. 0586.09
Contact:
Brad Fisher (202) 720-4024
SECRETARY VILSACK ANNOUNCES 41 WATERSHEDS TO TAKE PART IN MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN INITIATIVE
Initiative Will Provide Approximately $320 Million in USDA Assistance In Basin Area
WASHINGTON, November 23, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that 41 watersheds in 12 states, known as Focus Areas, have been selected to participate in a new initiative to improve water quality and the overall health of the Mississippi River Basin. The selected watersheds cover over 42 million acres, or more than 5 percent of the Basin's land area.
"The USDA is committed to working cooperatively with agricultural producers, partner organizations and State and local agencies to improve water quality and the quality of life for the tens of millions of people who live in the Mississippi River Basin, the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative will help" Vilsack said. "Today's announcement is another step toward achieving this goal, and I encourage as many eligible participants as possible to join us in this major conservation effort."
The Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI), which was announced on September 24, 2009, will provide approximately $320 million in USDA financial assistance over the next four years for voluntary projects in priority watersheds in Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. MRBI will help producers implement conservation and management practices that prevent, control and trap nutrient runoff from agricultural land.
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) manages the initiative. NRCS State Conservationists from the 12 watershed states selected the watersheds with guidance from State Technical Committees and state water quality agencies. Selections were based on the potential for managing nitrogen and phosphorus -- nutrients associated with water quality problems in the Basin -- while maintaining agricultural productivity and benefiting wildlife.
Next, smaller watershed projects will be selected through a competitive process under NRCS' Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI). NRCS assistance will be leveraged with contributions from partners, expanding the capacity available to improve water quality throughout the Basin.
Three requests for project proposals will be announced in the next several weeks, including one for CCPI. Funding for CCPI projects will come from NRCS' Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program and Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.
Two other requests for proposals will fund projects through the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program and Conservation Innovation Grants. For information about these programs, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs .
State(s) Watershed
Arkansas/Missouri - Cache
Arkansas - Lake Conway-Point Remove
Arkansas - L'Anguille
Arkansas/Missouri - Lower St. Francis
Illinois - Lower Illinois - Senachwine Lake
Illinois - Upper Illinois
Illinois - Vermilion (Upper Mississippi River sub-basin)
Illinois/Indiana - Vermilion (Upper Ohio River sub-basin)
Indiana - Eel
Indiana - Upper East Fork White
Indiana - Wildcat
Indiana/Ohio - Upper Wabash
Iowa - Boone
Iowa - Maquoketa
Iowa - North Raccoon
Iowa/Minnesota - Upper Cedar
Kentucky/Tennessee - Bayou De Chien-Mayfield
Kentucky - Licking
Kentucky - Lower Green
Louisiana - Mermentau
Louisiana/Arkansas - Bayou Macon
Louisiana/Arkansas - Boeuf River
Minnesota - Middle Minnesota
Minnesota - Root
Minnesota - Sauk
Mississippi - Big Sunflower
Mississippi/Louisiana/Arkansas - Deer-Steele
Mississippi - Upper Yazoo
Missouri/Iowa - Lower Grand
Missouri - North Fork Salt
Missouri - South Fork Salt
Missouri/Arkansas - Little River Ditches
Ohio/Indiana - Upper Great Miami
Ohio - Upper Scioto
Tennessee - Forked Deer
Tennessee/Kentucky - Obion
Tennessee - South Fork Obion
Tennessee/Kentucky - Red River
Wisconsin/Illinois - Sugar
Wisconsin/Illinois - Upper Rock
Wisconsin/Illinois - Pecatonica
For information about the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative, including eligibility requirements, please visit the MRBI web page at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/mrbi/mrbi_overview.html or your USDA Service Center. A map of the project area is available the MRBI Programs webpage.
Subscribe to NRCS news releases and get other agency information at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov or contact NRCS Public Affairs at 202-720-3210.
NRCS celebrates its 75th year of service in 2010.
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272(voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
What part of NO don't these guys understand?
The living things in a half mile of this urban tributary of the West Fork of the White River were displaced and their habitat damaged for four days in November 2009 with no apology.
On the day that these photos were taken, the NRCS announced a huge effort to improve water quality in many states, including Arkansas. How does treating the riparian zones of Fayetteville's tributaries of the White River and the Illinois River watersheds make sense when the agency's overall mission includes protecting and enhancing such areas?
Release No. 0586.09
Contact:
Brad Fisher (202) 720-4024
SECRETARY VILSACK ANNOUNCES 41 WATERSHEDS TO TAKE PART IN MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN INITIATIVE
Initiative Will Provide Approximately $320 Million in USDA Assistance In Basin Area
WASHINGTON, November 23, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that 41 watersheds in 12 states, known as Focus Areas, have been selected to participate in a new initiative to improve water quality and the overall health of the Mississippi River Basin. The selected watersheds cover over 42 million acres, or more than 5 percent of the Basin's land area.
"The USDA is committed to working cooperatively with agricultural producers, partner organizations and State and local agencies to improve water quality and the quality of life for the tens of millions of people who live in the Mississippi River Basin, the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative will help" Vilsack said. "Today's announcement is another step toward achieving this goal, and I encourage as many eligible participants as possible to join us in this major conservation effort."
The Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI), which was announced on September 24, 2009, will provide approximately $320 million in USDA financial assistance over the next four years for voluntary projects in priority watersheds in Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. MRBI will help producers implement conservation and management practices that prevent, control and trap nutrient runoff from agricultural land.
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) manages the initiative. NRCS State Conservationists from the 12 watershed states selected the watersheds with guidance from State Technical Committees and state water quality agencies. Selections were based on the potential for managing nitrogen and phosphorus -- nutrients associated with water quality problems in the Basin -- while maintaining agricultural productivity and benefiting wildlife.
Next, smaller watershed projects will be selected through a competitive process under NRCS' Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI). NRCS assistance will be leveraged with contributions from partners, expanding the capacity available to improve water quality throughout the Basin.
Three requests for project proposals will be announced in the next several weeks, including one for CCPI. Funding for CCPI projects will come from NRCS' Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program and Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program.
Two other requests for proposals will fund projects through the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program and Conservation Innovation Grants. For information about these programs, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs .
State(s) Watershed
Arkansas/Missouri - Cache
Arkansas - Lake Conway-Point Remove
Arkansas - L'Anguille
Arkansas/Missouri - Lower St. Francis
Illinois - Lower Illinois - Senachwine Lake
Illinois - Upper Illinois
Illinois - Vermilion (Upper Mississippi River sub-basin)
Illinois/Indiana - Vermilion (Upper Ohio River sub-basin)
Indiana - Eel
Indiana - Upper East Fork White
Indiana - Wildcat
Indiana/Ohio - Upper Wabash
Iowa - Boone
Iowa - Maquoketa
Iowa - North Raccoon
Iowa/Minnesota - Upper Cedar
Kentucky/Tennessee - Bayou De Chien-Mayfield
Kentucky - Licking
Kentucky - Lower Green
Louisiana - Mermentau
Louisiana/Arkansas - Bayou Macon
Louisiana/Arkansas - Boeuf River
Minnesota - Middle Minnesota
Minnesota - Root
Minnesota - Sauk
Mississippi - Big Sunflower
Mississippi/Louisiana/Arkansas - Deer-Steele
Mississippi - Upper Yazoo
Missouri/Iowa - Lower Grand
Missouri - North Fork Salt
Missouri - South Fork Salt
Missouri/Arkansas - Little River Ditches
Ohio/Indiana - Upper Great Miami
Ohio - Upper Scioto
Tennessee - Forked Deer
Tennessee/Kentucky - Obion
Tennessee - South Fork Obion
Tennessee/Kentucky - Red River
Wisconsin/Illinois - Sugar
Wisconsin/Illinois - Upper Rock
Wisconsin/Illinois - Pecatonica
For information about the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative, including eligibility requirements, please visit the MRBI web page at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/mrbi/mrbi_overview.html or your USDA Service Center. A map of the project area is available the MRBI Programs webpage.
Subscribe to NRCS news releases and get other agency information at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov or contact NRCS Public Affairs at 202-720-3210.
NRCS celebrates its 75th year of service in 2010.
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272(voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Two varieties of goldenrod identified beside the new city trail west of World Peace Wetland Prairie by Theo Witsell of the Arkansas Heritage Commission
Elliott's bluestem (Andropogon gyrans Ashe) identified by Theo Witsell to the northwest of Pinnacle Prairie
Elliott's bluestem Andropogon gyrans Ashe var. gyrans
Aubrey james | MySpace Video
www.naturalheritage.org
http://www.discoverlife.org/20/q?guide=POPA_USGA
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
Elliott's bluestem
Symbol: ANGY2
Group: Monocot
Family: Poaceae
Duration: Perennial
Growth Habit: Graminoid
Native Status:
L48 N
Click on the image below to enlarge it and download a high-resolution JPEG file.
©James H. Miller. Miller, J.H. and K.V. Miller. 2005. Forest plants of the southeast and their wildlife uses. University of Georgia Press, Athens. Courtesy of University of Georgia Press . Image scanned by Forestry Images . Usage Requirements . Any use of copyrighted images requires notification of the copyright holder.
More Information:
Classification
PM Publications
Data Source and Documentation
Images:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
See all the Andropogon thumbnails at the PLANTS Gallery
Distribution:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
View Native Status
See U.S. county distributions (when available) by clicking on the map or the linked states below:
USA ( AL , AR , DC , DE , FL , GA , IL , IN , KY , LA , MD, MO , MS , NC , NJ , OH , OK, PA , SC , TN , TX , VA , WV )
Related Taxa:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
View 338 genera in Poaceae , 20 species in Andropogon or click below on a thumbnail map or name for species profiles.
Andropogon gyrans var. gyrans
Elliott's bluestem
Andropogon gyrans var. stenophyllus
Elliott's bluestem
Native Introduced
Classification:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
Click on a scientific name below to expand it in the PLANTS Classification Report.
Kingdom Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class Liliopsida – Monocotyledons
Subclass Commelinidae
Order Cyperales
Family Poaceae – Grass family
Genus Andropogon L. – bluestem
Species Andropogon gyrans Ashe – Elliott's bluestem
Wetland Indicator Status:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
Andropogon perangustatus [= ANGYS ]:
Nat. Ind. Reg. 1 Reg. 2 Reg. 3 Reg. 4 Reg. 5 Reg. 6 Reg. 7 Reg. 8 Reg. 9 Reg. 0 Reg. A Reg. C Reg. H
OBL NO OBL NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Interpreting Wetland Indicator Status
Wildlife Habitat Values:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
Large Mammals Small Mammals Water Birds Terrestrial Birds
Source Large Mammals Food Large Mammals Cover Small Mammals Food Small Mammals Cover Water Birds Food Water Birds Cover Terrestrial Birds Food Terrestrial Birds Cover
Miller Minor Low Minor Moderate
Wildlife Habitat Values
Miller, J.H., and K.V. Miller. 1999. Forest plants of the southeast and their wildlife uses . Southern Weed Science Society.
More Accounts and Images:
Andropogon gyrans Ashe
View species account , photographs , and distribution from USF Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants.
View species account , distribution map , and illustration from the Grass Manual on the Web.
View species account from ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN).
View taxonomic account from Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) for ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number 182527.
View photographs and distribution from University of Tennessee Herbarium.
Theo Witsell of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission points out big bluestem, little bluestem and broom sedge from Pinnacle Prairie Trail on west side of World Peace Wetland Prairie on November 21, 2009
Three of four tall-grass species right here, Witsell says
Aubrey james | MySpace Video
Theo Witsell and little bluestem vs broom sedge
Aubrey james | MySpace Video
Little bluestem
Scientific Name: Schizachyrium scoparium (Michx.) Nash.
Common Name: Little bluestem
Morphological Characteristics:
A native, perennial, warm season, long-lived bunchgrass. Culms are 1 to 4 feet tall, erect and large tufted, having occasional short rhizomes. Basal stems and sheaths are flattened. Leaf blades are hairless; V shaped in cross section, keeled, light blue-green when young turning reddish brown at maturity. Ligules 1/16 inch in length, membranous, with singed margins. Inflorescence consists of several unbranched racemes, one on the end of each seed stalk. Spikelets are paired along raceme axis; fertile one plump, awned and stalkless; sterile one stalked, awnless or awn tipped.
Little bluestem has a deep fibrous root system, and may be semi-sod forming in sub humid zones. As a warm season grass it begins growth in late spring and continues through the hot summer period until the first killing frost. It is easily mistaken for common broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus) except little bluestem has very flat bluish basal shoots. Broomsedge has a straight awn and has two or more stalked seed clusters per branch. Little bluestem has a twisted, bent awn and a single cluster of seeds per branch. Seacoast bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium var. littorale) occurs only in the coastal plain region. It is very similar to little bluestem but can be distinguished by the bent stems at the base, whereas little bluestem stems are erect.
Little bluestem is one of the most widely distributed native grasses in North America. It will grow on a wide variety of soils but is very well adapted to well drained, medium to dry, infertile soils. The plant has excellent drought and fair shade tolerance, and fair to poor flood tolerance. It grows preferentially on sites with pH 7.0 and slightly higher.
Conservation Use:
Why collect this plant?
In north-central Texas there is a lack of locally-adapted native (ecotypic) plant materials for use in revegetation projects. The North Texas Ecotype Project (NTEP) was established to conserve the culturally, historically, and ecologically important native plants of north-central Texas, and promote their use for revegetation projects.
The Knox City Plant Materials Center in cooperation with NTEP have identified little bluestem as a plant meeting project objectives. Plant and seed collections supporting NTEP are targeted for 43 counties located within all or portions of 6 vegetation areas in north-central Texas including: Blackland Prairie, East Cross Timbers, Fort Worth Prairie, Lampasas Cut Plain, West Cross Timbers and Rolling Plains.
Future ecotypes developed will benefits the following conservation practice standards: 645 Upland Wildlife Habitat Management; 342 Critical Area Planting; 562 Recreation Area Improvement; 550 Range Planting; 327 Conservation Cover; 643 Restoration and Management of Rare or Declining Habitats.
Your assistance in collecting this plant helps support the NRCS conservation practice standards which are employed daily to conserve the natural resources of Texas!
Center Requesting Seed:
Knox City Plant Materials Center
How to Collect Seed:
Identify native plant stands in your area. You can go to the following websites for helpful photos http://plants.usda.gov or http://www.noble.org/imagegallery/index.html or www.wildflower.org
Determine if seed is mature. Mature seed is typically dry and will easily separate from the seed head.
Hand strip mature seed by grasping the bottom of the seed head then gently pulling away from the base of the plant. Deposit seed in a brown paper sack. Collect seed from a minimum of 30 to 50 plants.
Label each collection as it is made so collections do not get mixed up. Information required includes: Collector’s name, number of plants collected, location (parish, city, highway, and GPS coordinates), site description (soil type, slope, and plants growing in association).
Complete NRCS-ECS-580; Plant Collection Information Form and mail with collected seeds to the NRCS Plant Materials Center requesting the species.
Knox City Plant Materials Center
3776 FM 1292
Knox City, TX 79529-2514
Helpful Tips:
Look for superior plants that display differences in color, height, or forage abundance and record observations. Differences in growing site or location should be made into separate collections if they are separated by more than 1 mile between sites.
Broomsedge
Andropogon virginicus
Broomgrass, Broomsage, Broomsedge bluestem, Broomstraw, Sage grass, Yellow bluestem
Grass
Several stems may arise from each clump of broomsedge. They will turn yellow-tan in the fall.
©James H. Miller, USDA-NRCS Plants Database
Broomsedge seeds are small and hairy.
©James H. Miller, USDA-NRCS Plants Database
Description
This native warm-season grass is often confused with little bluestem. Compared with little bluestem, broomsedge stems are the more flattened and more densely leafed. Also, broomsedge in the fall/winter is typically yellowish tan, while little bluestem has a bronzy color. It is usually no more than 2 feet tall at maturity. Seeds are light and fluffy. Dense stands are often indicative of acid soils, phosphorus deficiency or overgrazing. Lime and fertilizer application may cause broomsedge to decline or disappear.
Use by bobwhites
Broomsedge's clumpy growth and fine leaves and stems make it an excellent grass for nesting, and the height is preferred for roosting. Stands of broomsedge tend to be "weedy," supporting a diverse mix of annual plants that provide further benefits for bobwhites.
Compare the cross section of a broomsedge stem with that of little bluestem. Broomsedge is more flattened.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Instructions that Natural Resources Conservation Service contractors are supposed to be following
Please click on image to go to Flickr site and ENLARGE for reading and find related documents and photos.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Theo Witsell of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission to speak on rare habitat and newly found wildflower species
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of invitation to FGNS meeting on November 21, 2009.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Red Oak Park plan would tear up the ground and displace mature trees and other significant vegetation but do nothing to protect the park from the huge upstream flow of water from the south, east and west
Red Oak Park Plan
MAYBE, this plan would help protect the property of the landowner downstream to the north toward Hamestring Creek. But it will totally miss the point of trying to protect the existing mature trees and will allow an incredible increase in erosion during construction and have only a minimal chance of improving the park in any credible way.
The only worthwhile and effective use of the money set aside for this plan would be KEEPING the water WATER WHERE IT FALLS: On the lots in the subdivisions to the south, east and west in raingardens created in the yards and in the treeless portion of the park at the southeast corner.
Helping people create raingardens using the natural soil remaining in the area and encouraging NOT to mow but to protect native vegetation there would decrease the dangerous runoff to a manageable level.
It is illogical to spend money doing some that won't meet the goals of the people who originally began complaining about the situation.
MAYBE, this plan would help protect the property of the landowner downstream to the north toward Hamestring Creek. But it will totally miss the point of trying to protect the existing mature trees and will allow an incredible increase in erosion during construction and have only a minimal chance of improving the park in any credible way.
The only worthwhile and effective use of the money set aside for this plan would be KEEPING the water WATER WHERE IT FALLS: On the lots in the subdivisions to the south, east and west in raingardens created in the yards and in the treeless portion of the park at the southeast corner.
Helping people create raingardens using the natural soil remaining in the area and encouraging NOT to mow but to protect native vegetation there would decrease the dangerous runoff to a manageable level.
It is illogical to spend money doing some that won't meet the goals of the people who originally began complaining about the situation.
Fayetteville's engineering and park departments team up to create plan to "restore" channel of stream in Red Oak Park
Please click on image to ENLARGE and go to Flickr site to Enlarge view and to navigate to see related photos.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tour of Woolsey Wet Prairie and Fayetteville's westside sewage-treatment plant at 2 p.m. today precedes big evening for Illinois River Watershed Partnership
Illinois River Watershed Partnership
Annual Stakeholders Meeting
November 10, 2009
2:00 to 3:30 pm Tour of Fayetteville West Side Treatment Plant and Woolsey Wet Prairie
4:00 pm. Tour of Fayetteville Sam's Club
5:30 pm Hors d'oeuvres at Arvest Ballpark, Springdale
6:00 pm Sponsor Recognition and Golden Paddle Awards Reception
7:00 pm. Annual Membership and Board Meeting
Thank you for your dedicated efforts and support
to preserve, protect and restore the Illinois River Watershed.
To see evidence of the need for protection, please click on image to ENLARGE example of construction-site erosion in the Illinois River Watershed.
Annual Stakeholders Meeting
November 10, 2009
2:00 to 3:30 pm Tour of Fayetteville West Side Treatment Plant and Woolsey Wet Prairie
4:00 pm. Tour of Fayetteville Sam's Club
5:30 pm Hors d'oeuvres at Arvest Ballpark, Springdale
6:00 pm Sponsor Recognition and Golden Paddle Awards Reception
7:00 pm. Annual Membership and Board Meeting
Thank you for your dedicated efforts and support
to preserve, protect and restore the Illinois River Watershed.
To see evidence of the need for protection, please click on image to ENLARGE example of construction-site erosion in the Illinois River Watershed.
 |
| From Northwest Arkansas environment central |
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Tomorrow's most important meeting in Northwest Arkansas: FREE
November 5 Streambank Restoration Workshop, Springdale 9 am. to 3 pm.
To register for free riparian demonstration workshop, email contact@irwp.org
Springdale city administration building 9 am to 3 pm Thursday, November 5, 2009
IRWP Streambank Restoration Workshop
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The Workshop will be led by Bobby Hernandez, Region 6 USEPA Community Planner and Jon Fripp of Fort Worth,NRCS.
Workshop partners include the City of Springdale Tree City USA committee, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC), Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
PURPOSE:
The workshop will cover several key areas of restoration including:
TECHNIQUES: Various streambank restoration techniques and successful technology and projects will be emphasized as well as unsuccessful restoration projects highlighted.
DEMONSTRATION: Demonstration of Jet Stinger technology will be used to plant willow cuttings along streambanks in the host city of Springdale, Arkansas.
IMPLEMENTATION: Implementation of low cost riparian and stormwater Best
Management Practices to improve water quality and reduce pollution in the Illinois River Watershed.
To register for free riparian demonstration workshop, email contact@irwp.org
Springdale city administration building 9 am to 3 pm Thursday, November 5, 2009
IRWP Streambank Restoration Workshop
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The Workshop will be led by Bobby Hernandez, Region 6 USEPA Community Planner and Jon Fripp of Fort Worth,NRCS.
Workshop partners include the City of Springdale Tree City USA committee, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC), Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
PURPOSE:
The workshop will cover several key areas of restoration including:
TECHNIQUES: Various streambank restoration techniques and successful technology and projects will be emphasized as well as unsuccessful restoration projects highlighted.
DEMONSTRATION: Demonstration of Jet Stinger technology will be used to plant willow cuttings along streambanks in the host city of Springdale, Arkansas.
IMPLEMENTATION: Implementation of low cost riparian and stormwater Best
Management Practices to improve water quality and reduce pollution in the Illinois River Watershed.
Green-group meetings this week listed by Green Groups Guild
Nov. 4-10 events
From: Green Groups Guild (ggg@listserv.uark.edu) on behalf of ggg (ggg@UARK.EDU)
Sent: Wed 11/04/09 8:34 AM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Upcoming events:
GroGreen:Student Organic Garden Meeting- WEDS. Nov. 4th at 5pm in Plant Sciences 007.
-New garden proposal and possible garden tour (1500 Cleveland Street). Contact orgfarm@uark.edu
Horticulture Club- THURS. Nov. 5th at 5pm in Plant Sciences 007
-Activity brainstorming session and Hydroponic project discussion. Contact hortclub@uark.edu
FRESH! The Movie - THURS. Nov. 5th at 7pm at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church 2925 Old Missouri Rd.
-FRESH celebrates the farmers and business people from across the country who are re-inventing our food system. It's a message of hope showing healthier and sustainable agriculture and food systems. www.freshthemovie.com - Donations will be accepted.
The V.E.G. Club- MON. Nov. 9th at 5:30pm TBA
-Tour of Ozark Natural Foods. Contact vegarkansas@gmail.com
Heifer International- TUES. Nov. 10th TBA : POTLUCK
-Preparation for upcoming benefit concert. URGENT- please contact any bands you may know who will be willing to donate their music for their show. Contact fayettevilleheifer@gmail.com
Have a great week!
GGG
From: Green Groups Guild (ggg@listserv.uark.edu) on behalf of ggg (ggg@UARK.EDU)
Sent: Wed 11/04/09 8:34 AM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Upcoming events:
GroGreen:Student Organic Garden Meeting- WEDS. Nov. 4th at 5pm in Plant Sciences 007.
-New garden proposal and possible garden tour (1500 Cleveland Street). Contact orgfarm@uark.edu
Horticulture Club- THURS. Nov. 5th at 5pm in Plant Sciences 007
-Activity brainstorming session and Hydroponic project discussion. Contact hortclub@uark.edu
FRESH! The Movie - THURS. Nov. 5th at 7pm at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church 2925 Old Missouri Rd.
-FRESH celebrates the farmers and business people from across the country who are re-inventing our food system. It's a message of hope showing healthier and sustainable agriculture and food systems. www.freshthemovie.com - Donations will be accepted.
The V.E.G. Club- MON. Nov. 9th at 5:30pm TBA
-Tour of Ozark Natural Foods. Contact vegarkansas@gmail.com
Heifer International- TUES. Nov. 10th TBA : POTLUCK
-Preparation for upcoming benefit concert. URGENT- please contact any bands you may know who will be willing to donate their music for their show. Contact fayettevilleheifer@gmail.com
Have a great week!
GGG
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Senate and House Chairmen of joint-performance committee of the Arkansas General Assembly invite public to attend meeting in Rogers on Oct. 30-31, 2009, to hear Northwest Arkansas comments on watershed issues
THE ARKANSAS GENERAL ASSEMBLY JOINT PERFORMANCE REVIEW COMMITTEE
Chairmen: Senator Denny Altes and Representative Lindsley Smith
invite you to a pair of legislative meetings in Rogers Oct. 30 and 31 to study water quality and quantity issues.
Below is the agenda for Friday afternoon's Legislative Joint Performance Review Committee meeting and for Saturday's Joint Performance Review Committee meeting. We hope you will come, and please inform others about this important issue of water quality and quantity.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites, Rogers, 3303 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Grand Ballroom 9-10
A. Call to Order.
B. Approval of Minutes—October 5, 2009
C. Disposal of water used during drilling in the Fayetteville Shale Gas and the possible impact on underground aquifers and wells.
1. Comments by Ms. Joyce Hale, League of Women Voters
2. Comments by Mr. Tim Snell, The Nature Conservancy
3. Comments by Ms. Debbie Doss, Arkansas Canoe Club
4. Comments by Mr. Larry Bengal, Director, Oil and Gas Commission
5. Comments by Ms. Teresa Marks, Director, ADEQ
6. Discussion by Committee Members
D. Discussion of the Illinois River Watershed and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), also MS4 and stormwater regulations-Reg 2 changes.
1. Comments by Ms. Delia Haak
2. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
3. Comments by Mr. Evan Teague, Arkansas Farm Bureau
4. Comments by Dr. Brian Haggard, Director, Arkansas Water Resources Center
5. Comments by Ms. Teresa Mark, Director, ADEQ
6. Discussion by Committee Members
E. Adjournment
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the Center for Nonprofits at St. Marys--1200 West Walnut Street in Rogers.
A. Call to Order.
B. Discussion of the White River Watershed Protection Plan and sediment turbidity in Beaver Lake.
1. Comments by Mr. Alan Fortenberry, Beaver Water District
2. Comments by Mr. Mike Malone, Northwest Arkansas Council
3. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
4. Comments by Ms. Teresa Marks, Director, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality
5. Discussion by Committee Members
C. Discussion of the Watershed Management Plan for the State of Arkansas
1. Comments by Mr. Tony Rimack, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
2. Comment by Mr. Ken Smith, Executive Director, Audubon Arkansas
3. Comments by Ms. Joyce Hale, League of Women Voters
4. Discussion by Committee Members
D. Update on the 2010-2011 Biennium Plan of Work for the Arkansas Water, Waste Disposal and Pollution Abatement Facilities General Obligation Bond Program.
1. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
2. Discussion by Committee Members
E. Adjournment
Guess having such meetings in Fayetteville isn't likely because there could be an angrier, larger crowd on hand and demanding to add comment.
Chairmen: Senator Denny Altes and Representative Lindsley Smith
invite you to a pair of legislative meetings in Rogers Oct. 30 and 31 to study water quality and quantity issues.
Below is the agenda for Friday afternoon's Legislative Joint Performance Review Committee meeting and for Saturday's Joint Performance Review Committee meeting. We hope you will come, and please inform others about this important issue of water quality and quantity.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites, Rogers, 3303 Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Grand Ballroom 9-10
A. Call to Order.
B. Approval of Minutes—October 5, 2009
C. Disposal of water used during drilling in the Fayetteville Shale Gas and the possible impact on underground aquifers and wells.
1. Comments by Ms. Joyce Hale, League of Women Voters
2. Comments by Mr. Tim Snell, The Nature Conservancy
3. Comments by Ms. Debbie Doss, Arkansas Canoe Club
4. Comments by Mr. Larry Bengal, Director, Oil and Gas Commission
5. Comments by Ms. Teresa Marks, Director, ADEQ
6. Discussion by Committee Members
D. Discussion of the Illinois River Watershed and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), also MS4 and stormwater regulations-Reg 2 changes.
1. Comments by Ms. Delia Haak
2. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
3. Comments by Mr. Evan Teague, Arkansas Farm Bureau
4. Comments by Dr. Brian Haggard, Director, Arkansas Water Resources Center
5. Comments by Ms. Teresa Mark, Director, ADEQ
6. Discussion by Committee Members
E. Adjournment
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the Center for Nonprofits at St. Marys--1200 West Walnut Street in Rogers.
A. Call to Order.
B. Discussion of the White River Watershed Protection Plan and sediment turbidity in Beaver Lake.
1. Comments by Mr. Alan Fortenberry, Beaver Water District
2. Comments by Mr. Mike Malone, Northwest Arkansas Council
3. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
4. Comments by Ms. Teresa Marks, Director, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality
5. Discussion by Committee Members
C. Discussion of the Watershed Management Plan for the State of Arkansas
1. Comments by Mr. Tony Rimack, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
2. Comment by Mr. Ken Smith, Executive Director, Audubon Arkansas
3. Comments by Ms. Joyce Hale, League of Women Voters
4. Discussion by Committee Members
D. Update on the 2010-2011 Biennium Plan of Work for the Arkansas Water, Waste Disposal and Pollution Abatement Facilities General Obligation Bond Program.
1. Comments by Mr. Randy Young, Executive Director, Arkansas Natural Resources Commission
2. Discussion by Committee Members
E. Adjournment
Guess having such meetings in Fayetteville isn't likely because there could be an angrier, larger crowd on hand and demanding to add comment.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Illinois River Watershed Partnership's free streambank restoration workshop an example of training that representatives of many city government departments need to attend
Please click on image to go to Flickr site and Enlarge photo of sign where Lewis Avenue crosses Hamestring Creek in Fayetteville, Arkansas. While on Flickr, please visit the Illinois River Watershed set of photos for many more photos on the subject of managing stormwater to keep the water where it falls.
November 5 Streambank Restoration Workshop, Springdale 9 am. to 3 pm.
To register for free riparian demonstration workshop, email contact@irwp.org
IRWP Streambank Restoration Workshop
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The Workshop will be led by Bobby Hernandez, Region 6 USEPA Community Planner and Jon Fripp of Fort Worth,NRCS.
Workshop partners include the City of Springdale Tree City USA committee, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC), Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
PURPOSE:
The workshop will cover several key areas of restoration including:
TECHNIQUES: Various streambank restoration techniques and successful technology and projects will be emphasized as well as unsuccessful restoration projects highlighted.
DEMONSTRATION: Demonstration of Jet Stinger technology will be used to plant willow cuttings along streambanks in the host city of Springdale, Arkansas.
IMPLEMENTATION: Implementation of low cost riparian and stormwater Best
Management Practices to improve water quality and reduce pollution in the Illinois River Watershed.
November 5 Streambank Restoration Workshop, Springdale 9 am. to 3 pm.
To register for free riparian demonstration workshop, email contact@irwp.org
IRWP Streambank Restoration Workshop
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP:
The Workshop will be led by Bobby Hernandez, Region 6 USEPA Community Planner and Jon Fripp of Fort Worth,NRCS.
Workshop partners include the City of Springdale Tree City USA committee, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission (ANRC), Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
PURPOSE:
The workshop will cover several key areas of restoration including:
TECHNIQUES: Various streambank restoration techniques and successful technology and projects will be emphasized as well as unsuccessful restoration projects highlighted.
DEMONSTRATION: Demonstration of Jet Stinger technology will be used to plant willow cuttings along streambanks in the host city of Springdale, Arkansas.
IMPLEMENTATION: Implementation of low cost riparian and stormwater Best
Management Practices to improve water quality and reduce pollution in the Illinois River Watershed.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Watershed workshop should be offered to city workers involved in several departments
“WEPP Model Workshop for
Watershed Assessment and Planning Applications”
November 17 - 19, 2009, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the Nation's largest source of water quality problems with sediment being one of the most common pollutants, contributing to the impairment of many of our lakes and streams. Understanding erosion processes and sources of sediment associated with land-use practices is an important component of watershed assessment and aids in evaluating management practices to reduce sediment. The Water Erosion Prediction Project or WEPP model is a tool that can be used to predict soil erosion and sediment delivery to provide science-based information for watershed planning.
The WEPP hydrology and erosion model mathematically describes soil erosion and sediment delivery processes. For a single run, WEPP uses several decades of stochastically-generated daily weather to predict daily plant growth and decay, residue accumulation and decay and the soil water balance. For each day with precipitation WEPP predicts infiltration and runoff; and sediment detachment, transport, deposition and delivery along a hill slope and through a stream system. The WEPP model distributes soil loss spatially (at a given point on the hill or in the stream network) and temporally (on a daily, monthly, or annual basis).
Upon completing this course: 1) participants will have a better understanding of erosion processes; 2) they will be able to predict erosion from roads and disturbed hill slopes using online interfaces; 3) they will know how to modify files in WEPP Windows to analyze forests and farmland hillsides and to support GeoWEPP watershed analyses; 4) they will have completed two sets of GeoWEPP exercises, one for identifying critical areas of erosion within a watershed following a wildfire and one for setting up GeoWEPP to complete a Cumulative Watershed Effects analysis including forest and farmlands; and 5) they will gain experience in collecting road and hill slope data in the field and use it to run the WEPP model. A detailed course agenda is attached.
Key topics that will be covered include:
· Overview of science in the WEPP hydrology and erosion model using local climate, soil and topographic details.
· WEPP on-line training with web-based interfaces for forest and farm applications
o Best Management Practices for reducing sediment loss from roads
o Evaluating disturbed sites in forest, farm and urban areas
o Data collection in the field for roads and hillside sites
· Fundamental features of the WEPP Windows and GeoWEPP GIS interfaces as applied to disturbed hillsides and Cumulative Watershed Effects analyses
· Watershed management applications and hands-on sessions
· Case studies in which the WEPP is used to model sediment from forests and farm lands at a watershed scale and as a watershed management tool.
· Opportunities to network with other area watershed management specialist.
Who should attend this training: This workshop is designed for professionals who work in the areas of natural resource management, water quality protection, watershed management, and/or nonpoint source pollution. Specialists who will benefit from this training are likely to be employees of federal, state, county, and local agencies, watershed practitioners, scientists, engineers and consultants. You do not have to be a modeler to attend this training. The current WEPP model is easy to learn and is user friendly. The principles and practices presented through this workshop are beneficial to professionals at all levels including managers.
Training approach, instructor, and presenters: The workshop will be taught through interactive lectures, hands-on modeling sessions, and case studies. The workshop will use data collected during a field session to make the WEPP model runs.
Dr. William John Elliot, P.E. is the main instructor for the training. He is a leading international expert on the WEPP model and its applications. Dr. Elliot assisted with the development of the WEPP model and has spent more than 20 years expanding and improving its capabilities. He has over 40 years experience in the area of soil erosion - process and prediction and has taught WEPP workshops throughout the United States, Uganda, and Brazil. Dr. Elliot is currently a research engineer for the Air Water and Aquatic Environments Science Program, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Moscow, Idaho.
Other experts will share their experience in utilizing the WEPP model for watershed assessment and planning. Course presenters include: Ethan Inlander, The Nature Conservancy; Alan Clingenpeel, USDA, Forest Service, Ouachita National Forest; and Matthew Van Eps, P.E. & Sandi J. Formica, Watershed Conservation Resource Center.
Host and partners: The Mid-South Watershed Training Program was developed by the Watershed Conservation Resource Center (WCRC) through a US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) grant to provide watershed management training and technical tools needed by environmental professionals, watershed coordinators, conservation districts, and other watershed stakeholders to conserve, restore, and protect our natural resources. Through this program, the WCRC has partnered with the US EPA, USDA Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy to design, organize, and conduct the workshop.
Agenda and Travel Information: The course schedule, content, and speakers can be found in the agenda. Also detailed travel information including location, lodging directions, and parking can be found at the WCRC website, watershedconservation.org.
Registration: Space is limited, so please register early. To register, complete the attached registration form. If you have questions concerning registration, please contact Lori Linn at llinn@watershedconservation.org or at (479) 444-1916. The course tuition is $550 and includes course materials, three continental breakfasts, two lunches, one dinner, and break refreshments.
to protect, conserve, and restore natural resources using a watershed approach
Matthew A. Van Eps
Associate Director
Watershed Conservation Resource Center
380 W. Rock St.
Fayetteville, AR 72701
vaneps@watershedconservation.org
tel:
fax:
5013527294
9283962546
Watershed Assessment and Planning Applications”
November 17 - 19, 2009, Fayetteville, Arkansas
Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the Nation's largest source of water quality problems with sediment being one of the most common pollutants, contributing to the impairment of many of our lakes and streams. Understanding erosion processes and sources of sediment associated with land-use practices is an important component of watershed assessment and aids in evaluating management practices to reduce sediment. The Water Erosion Prediction Project or WEPP model is a tool that can be used to predict soil erosion and sediment delivery to provide science-based information for watershed planning.
The WEPP hydrology and erosion model mathematically describes soil erosion and sediment delivery processes. For a single run, WEPP uses several decades of stochastically-generated daily weather to predict daily plant growth and decay, residue accumulation and decay and the soil water balance. For each day with precipitation WEPP predicts infiltration and runoff; and sediment detachment, transport, deposition and delivery along a hill slope and through a stream system. The WEPP model distributes soil loss spatially (at a given point on the hill or in the stream network) and temporally (on a daily, monthly, or annual basis).
Upon completing this course: 1) participants will have a better understanding of erosion processes; 2) they will be able to predict erosion from roads and disturbed hill slopes using online interfaces; 3) they will know how to modify files in WEPP Windows to analyze forests and farmland hillsides and to support GeoWEPP watershed analyses; 4) they will have completed two sets of GeoWEPP exercises, one for identifying critical areas of erosion within a watershed following a wildfire and one for setting up GeoWEPP to complete a Cumulative Watershed Effects analysis including forest and farmlands; and 5) they will gain experience in collecting road and hill slope data in the field and use it to run the WEPP model. A detailed course agenda is attached.
Key topics that will be covered include:
· Overview of science in the WEPP hydrology and erosion model using local climate, soil and topographic details.
· WEPP on-line training with web-based interfaces for forest and farm applications
o Best Management Practices for reducing sediment loss from roads
o Evaluating disturbed sites in forest, farm and urban areas
o Data collection in the field for roads and hillside sites
· Fundamental features of the WEPP Windows and GeoWEPP GIS interfaces as applied to disturbed hillsides and Cumulative Watershed Effects analyses
· Watershed management applications and hands-on sessions
· Case studies in which the WEPP is used to model sediment from forests and farm lands at a watershed scale and as a watershed management tool.
· Opportunities to network with other area watershed management specialist.
Who should attend this training: This workshop is designed for professionals who work in the areas of natural resource management, water quality protection, watershed management, and/or nonpoint source pollution. Specialists who will benefit from this training are likely to be employees of federal, state, county, and local agencies, watershed practitioners, scientists, engineers and consultants. You do not have to be a modeler to attend this training. The current WEPP model is easy to learn and is user friendly. The principles and practices presented through this workshop are beneficial to professionals at all levels including managers.
Training approach, instructor, and presenters: The workshop will be taught through interactive lectures, hands-on modeling sessions, and case studies. The workshop will use data collected during a field session to make the WEPP model runs.
Dr. William John Elliot, P.E. is the main instructor for the training. He is a leading international expert on the WEPP model and its applications. Dr. Elliot assisted with the development of the WEPP model and has spent more than 20 years expanding and improving its capabilities. He has over 40 years experience in the area of soil erosion - process and prediction and has taught WEPP workshops throughout the United States, Uganda, and Brazil. Dr. Elliot is currently a research engineer for the Air Water and Aquatic Environments Science Program, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Moscow, Idaho.
Other experts will share their experience in utilizing the WEPP model for watershed assessment and planning. Course presenters include: Ethan Inlander, The Nature Conservancy; Alan Clingenpeel, USDA, Forest Service, Ouachita National Forest; and Matthew Van Eps, P.E. & Sandi J. Formica, Watershed Conservation Resource Center.
Host and partners: The Mid-South Watershed Training Program was developed by the Watershed Conservation Resource Center (WCRC) through a US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) grant to provide watershed management training and technical tools needed by environmental professionals, watershed coordinators, conservation districts, and other watershed stakeholders to conserve, restore, and protect our natural resources. Through this program, the WCRC has partnered with the US EPA, USDA Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy to design, organize, and conduct the workshop.
Agenda and Travel Information: The course schedule, content, and speakers can be found in the agenda. Also detailed travel information including location, lodging directions, and parking can be found at the WCRC website, watershedconservation.org.
Registration: Space is limited, so please register early. To register, complete the attached registration form. If you have questions concerning registration, please contact Lori Linn at llinn@watershedconservation.org or at (479) 444-1916. The course tuition is $550 and includes course materials, three continental breakfasts, two lunches, one dinner, and break refreshments.
to protect, conserve, and restore natural resources using a watershed approach
Matthew A. Van Eps
Associate Director
Watershed Conservation Resource Center
380 W. Rock St.
Fayetteville, AR 72701
vaneps@watershedconservation.org
tel:
fax:
5013527294
9283962546
Green-infrastructure groups gather with Green Drinks group at Smiling Jack's on October 19, 2009
Please click on photos from Monday night's meeting of the Green Drinks group with members of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's green-infrastructure group and the Fayetteville Forward green-infrastructure group at the Smiling Jack's restaurant and bar a half block from Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ducks Unlimited Banquet October 29, 2009, in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Please click on images to move to Flickr site and use magnifying tool above photo to ENLARGE for easy reading.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Green Groups Guild meeting Thursday
From: Green Groups Guild (ggg@listserv.uark.edu) on behalf of ggg (ggg@UARK.EDU)
Sent: Tue 10/13/09 2:31 PM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Meeting 10/15/09 7:00 p.m.
209 Thompson Ave. Three Sisters Bldg on Dickson above Fez Hookah Lounge.
Patrick Kunnecke
GGG President
ASLA Vice President
4th Year Landscape Architecture Student
479-544-1906
Sent: Tue 10/13/09 2:31 PM
To: GGG@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
Meeting 10/15/09 7:00 p.m.
209 Thompson Ave. Three Sisters Bldg on Dickson above Fez Hookah Lounge.
Patrick Kunnecke
GGG President
ASLA Vice President
4th Year Landscape Architecture Student
479-544-1906
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Runners and Sponsors sought for Nov. 7, 2009, 5K veterans' memorial race to benefit Fayetteville National Cemetery
Please click on image to move to Flickr site and ENLARGE for easy reading. The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation meets at 10:30 a.m. Saturday October 10 and needs to add sponsor names to the file for the race T shirts and the brochures so that printing can begin. Already, Tyson Foods has donated at the Medal of Honor level and has challenged others to join them at the top of the list, thanks to the effort of RNCIC Secretary Peggy McClain.
Runners and Sponsors sought for Nov. 7, 2009, 5K veterans' memorial race to benefit Fayetteville National Cemetery
Please click on image to move to Flickr site and ENLARGE for easy reading. The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation meets at 10:30 a.m. Saturday October 10 and needs to add sponsor names to the file for the race T shirts and the brochures so that printing can begin. Already, Tyson Foods has donated at the Medal of Honor level and has challenged others to join them at the top of the list, thanks to the effort of RNCIC Secretary Peggy McClain.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Monarch butterfly on final days of September 2009 shows the perseverance of all earth's life in fighting to the end to survive and reproduce just one more time
Despite damaged wings, a migrating male monarch butterfly at World Peace Wetland Prairie collects nectar in preparation for the long flight to Mexico. If he can keep up with the other migrants and survive a hard winter in a Mexican tree and fly back to the U.S. in April or May he may father a new few members of a new generation. Or maybe his time has about passed and he won't be among the chosen (or selected). But failing to persevere isn't a concept that he understands.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Mississippi has problems with red-dirt silt equal to those in Northwest Arkaknsas
http://www.sunherald.com/local/story/1561085.html
Subdivision runoff curtailed
By ANITA LEE - calee@sunherald.com
E-MAIL
PRINT
REPRINT OR LICENSE
TEXT SIZE:
After repeated warnings, contractors building a Harrison County subdivision have repaired silt fences and laid sod to keep dirt from running into the Biloxi River.
During heavy rains last week, red dirt from the Crown Hills development streamed through the subdivision’s roadways. Harrison County’s code office had been warning contractors for a month that they needed to repair silt fences that catch runoff. Code Director Richard Herrin said he was forced last week to suspend inspections in the subdivision, effectively slowing or stopping work until the problem was corrected.
“I think they just had so much earth uncovered with no grass on it that it was causing the problem,” Herrin said. “When you’ve got a project that big with no grass covering anything, other than the homes that have been completed, you’ve got a major problem. Any time you unearth that much land and you don’t have grass or something to control it, if you get a big rain, then it’s going to wash off.”
He said the subdivision looked much better this week, with truckloads of sod hauled in to cover exposed dirt and silt fences repaired. The county has resumed inspections after a one-week suspension.
Developers are building 335 single-family homes for low- to-moderate income residents, taking advantage of tax credits available as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Three subdivisions — recently completed Thornton Hill and two phases of Crown Hill under construction — are being built on 225 acres just north of the Gulfport line and west of the Biloxi River.
The Biloxi Housing Authority’s nonprofit arm is an owner of the development.
Amit Goel, managing partner with prime subcontractor Construction Equity, said: “The fact that the county shut the inspections down for a week, I think that sent the message loud and clear and the subcontractors are starting to respect that. It’s a very big site and it doesn’t take a lot of breaches in the silt fences to cause the silt to wash into the street. That combined with a record rain, it happens.”
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality plans to inspect the property this week, a spokesman said, based on a complaint received.
The property was purchased from Weyerhaeuser under an agreement that allowed the company to cut trees to sell, Goel said. Builders then bulldozed the property down to the dirt and moved around a lot of dirt during initial construction. Underbrush and any trees not already removed were burned in piles.
The procedure is perfectly legal in Harrison County and Gulfport.
Both localities are without tree ordinances. MDEQ gets involved only to prevent runoff into waterways.
Subdivision runoff curtailed
By ANITA LEE - calee@sunherald.com
REPRINT OR LICENSE
TEXT SIZE:
After repeated warnings, contractors building a Harrison County subdivision have repaired silt fences and laid sod to keep dirt from running into the Biloxi River.
During heavy rains last week, red dirt from the Crown Hills development streamed through the subdivision’s roadways. Harrison County’s code office had been warning contractors for a month that they needed to repair silt fences that catch runoff. Code Director Richard Herrin said he was forced last week to suspend inspections in the subdivision, effectively slowing or stopping work until the problem was corrected.
“I think they just had so much earth uncovered with no grass on it that it was causing the problem,” Herrin said. “When you’ve got a project that big with no grass covering anything, other than the homes that have been completed, you’ve got a major problem. Any time you unearth that much land and you don’t have grass or something to control it, if you get a big rain, then it’s going to wash off.”
He said the subdivision looked much better this week, with truckloads of sod hauled in to cover exposed dirt and silt fences repaired. The county has resumed inspections after a one-week suspension.
Developers are building 335 single-family homes for low- to-moderate income residents, taking advantage of tax credits available as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Three subdivisions — recently completed Thornton Hill and two phases of Crown Hill under construction — are being built on 225 acres just north of the Gulfport line and west of the Biloxi River.
The Biloxi Housing Authority’s nonprofit arm is an owner of the development.
Amit Goel, managing partner with prime subcontractor Construction Equity, said: “The fact that the county shut the inspections down for a week, I think that sent the message loud and clear and the subcontractors are starting to respect that. It’s a very big site and it doesn’t take a lot of breaches in the silt fences to cause the silt to wash into the street. That combined with a record rain, it happens.”
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality plans to inspect the property this week, a spokesman said, based on a complaint received.
The property was purchased from Weyerhaeuser under an agreement that allowed the company to cut trees to sell, Goel said. Builders then bulldozed the property down to the dirt and moved around a lot of dirt during initial construction. Underbrush and any trees not already removed were burned in piles.
The procedure is perfectly legal in Harrison County and Gulfport.
Both localities are without tree ordinances. MDEQ gets involved only to prevent runoff into waterways.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Ozark chinquapin tree restoration of 10 a.m. presentation in Springdale
The Garden, Flower and Nature Society is to gather at 9:30 this morning in Springdale. Program starts about 10 a.m.
“Restoration of the Ozark
Chinquapin”
**New location**
Northwest Technical Institute
709 South Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR
(1/2 mile South of Jones Center on
Hwy 265) Enter at south door.
The traditional range of the Ozark Chinquapin was larger than it is today. The trees grew in non-swelling clays on hill sides and tops in the same habitat as the short leaf pine/oak/hickory forest. Wildlife populations today like yesterday are linked to the yearly mast crop, primarily red oaks, white oaks, hickories, and black walnut. From historic accounts evidence seems to indicate that in the Ozarks an abundance of wildlife occurred that we have not seen since.
The Ozark forests have changed a lot from pre-settlement days. It had more diverse habitat than the Ozarks of today. A mosaic mixture of tall grass prairie and forest where fire played an important role existed.
In 1819 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft made a journey through the Ozark Mountains of what is today Missouri and Arkansas, the historic range of the Ozark Chinquapin. His accounts describe the abundance of wildlife he encountered. He was fascinated by the incredible numbers of black bear, buffalo, wild turkeys, elk, squirrels, and deer he daily encountered.
In the Ozarks today there is a boom/bust cycle of mast crop. In years when the white oaks and red oaks produce a bounty of nuts wildlife benefits. The year following a large mast crop there is a large squirrel population. Large squirrel migrations have historically been documented in the Ozarks. Today these migrations still occur but at populations far below what we historically had. More food means more squirrels, larger litters, and more litters are born. Rodent populations such as mice, shrews, voles, and chipmunks also explode because of the huge mast crop. Predators such as red foxes, gray foxes, bobcats, and coyotes also have larger litters in response to the increase of food.
Historic records indicate Missouri had a large population of black bears in every county and that it was the second most killed large game animal in Missouri, with white tail deer being number one.
Despite the tremendous variety of available food for black bears in Missouri during fall, black bears are most dependent on the success of the nut crop. One of the most critical factors in black bear production in the Ozarks is also the mast crop. In Missouri, black bears breed in late spring but the fertilized embryos do not implant into the uterus of the sow unless she is able to put on fall fat reserves from an ample nut crop. If the female stores a lot of fat because of a large nut crop, up to four embryos may implant. But if there is not a nut crop she becomes lean and all of her embryos may abort. A consistent nut crop from the Ozark Chinquapin would have surely had a positive impact on bear populations in Missouri.
In years past when the mast crop has failed in the Ozarks deer have died because of lack of fat reserves put on by a mast crop. If the area doesn’t have any agricultural crops to supplement the failed mast crop the deer population suffers. If it is a severe winter the problem is compounded. Deer are very resilient animals but the young and the weak are the first to perish when little or no high protein food source is available.
The Ozark Chinquapin produced nuts every year because it bloomed in late may and early June. Such a consistent mast crop would have allowed for larger wildlife populations where it occurred. Where this tree occurred no doubt it was a keystone species that allowed wildlife to flourish. Restoring this tree to its native range would in theory have a significant impact on wildlife populations today.
“Restoration of the Ozark
Chinquapin”
**New location**
Northwest Technical Institute
709 South Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR
(1/2 mile South of Jones Center on
Hwy 265) Enter at south door.
The traditional range of the Ozark Chinquapin was larger than it is today. The trees grew in non-swelling clays on hill sides and tops in the same habitat as the short leaf pine/oak/hickory forest. Wildlife populations today like yesterday are linked to the yearly mast crop, primarily red oaks, white oaks, hickories, and black walnut. From historic accounts evidence seems to indicate that in the Ozarks an abundance of wildlife occurred that we have not seen since.
The Ozark forests have changed a lot from pre-settlement days. It had more diverse habitat than the Ozarks of today. A mosaic mixture of tall grass prairie and forest where fire played an important role existed.
In 1819 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft made a journey through the Ozark Mountains of what is today Missouri and Arkansas, the historic range of the Ozark Chinquapin. His accounts describe the abundance of wildlife he encountered. He was fascinated by the incredible numbers of black bear, buffalo, wild turkeys, elk, squirrels, and deer he daily encountered.
In the Ozarks today there is a boom/bust cycle of mast crop. In years when the white oaks and red oaks produce a bounty of nuts wildlife benefits. The year following a large mast crop there is a large squirrel population. Large squirrel migrations have historically been documented in the Ozarks. Today these migrations still occur but at populations far below what we historically had. More food means more squirrels, larger litters, and more litters are born. Rodent populations such as mice, shrews, voles, and chipmunks also explode because of the huge mast crop. Predators such as red foxes, gray foxes, bobcats, and coyotes also have larger litters in response to the increase of food.
Historic records indicate Missouri had a large population of black bears in every county and that it was the second most killed large game animal in Missouri, with white tail deer being number one.
Despite the tremendous variety of available food for black bears in Missouri during fall, black bears are most dependent on the success of the nut crop. One of the most critical factors in black bear production in the Ozarks is also the mast crop. In Missouri, black bears breed in late spring but the fertilized embryos do not implant into the uterus of the sow unless she is able to put on fall fat reserves from an ample nut crop. If the female stores a lot of fat because of a large nut crop, up to four embryos may implant. But if there is not a nut crop she becomes lean and all of her embryos may abort. A consistent nut crop from the Ozark Chinquapin would have surely had a positive impact on bear populations in Missouri.
In years past when the mast crop has failed in the Ozarks deer have died because of lack of fat reserves put on by a mast crop. If the area doesn’t have any agricultural crops to supplement the failed mast crop the deer population suffers. If it is a severe winter the problem is compounded. Deer are very resilient animals but the young and the weak are the first to perish when little or no high protein food source is available.
The Ozark Chinquapin produced nuts every year because it bloomed in late may and early June. Such a consistent mast crop would have allowed for larger wildlife populations where it occurred. Where this tree occurred no doubt it was a keystone species that allowed wildlife to flourish. Restoring this tree to its native range would in theory have a significant impact on wildlife populations today.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Flower, Garden and Nature Society to hear presentation on restoration of the Ozark Chinquapin
1
From the President........
The dogwood berries are bright red-orange in our yard,
spicebush berries in the woods are ripe and the Jack-in-
the-pulpit fruits are little clumps of red here and there ... it
must be fall. With all the rain we've gotten lately, the fall
bloomers are really showing their stuff, and the cool
nights are causing lots of orchids to flower in the
greenhouse.
Of course that means there's lots of work to be done
readying the garden for winter, but then I never get it all
done anyway, so maybe I'll just keep on ignoring it. It's
worked so far.
This Saturday we have something I think will be very
interesting. Most people know of the virtual elimination of
the American elm tree by Dutch elm disease, and the
efforts to bring it back. Far fewer are aware of the similar
situation with the American chestnut and Ozark
chinquapin, which have been nearly wiped out by chestnut
blight. We will hear about efforts to restore the Ozark
chinquapin by the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation.
See you on Saturday,
Steve
September 2009
Volume 14 Number 9
We come from the earth
we return to the earth
and in between
we garden.
THE FLOWER, GARDEN, AND NATURE SOCIETY OF NORTHWEST
ARKANSAS
FGNS Officers
Steve Marak
President
3460 Roma Drive
Springdale, AR 72762
H 479 271-5278
samarak@cox.net
Heather Cook
Vice-president
4436 Highland Knolls Rd
Rogers, AR 72758
H 479 366-9067
aacook@cox.net
Mary Bess Mulhollan
Secretary
3917 East Caston Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 442-7333
marybess@cox.net
Jean Faris
Treasurer
2511 Meandering Way
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 443-1986
jeanfaris@sbcglobal.net
Gail Pianalto
Past President
P.O. Box 444
Tontitown, AR 72770
H 479 361-2198
pgp31@cox.net
___________________
Paula Marinoni
Founder
617 W. Lafayette
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 444-6170
pm@paulamarinoni.com
Join us Saturday
September 19
for the presentation:
“Restoration of the Ozark
Chinquapin”
**New location**
Northwest Technical Institute
709 South Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR
(1/2 mile South of Jones Center on
Hwy 265) Enter at south door.
Inside
President's Message p. 1
Botanically
Speaking p. 2
In The Greenhouse p. 4
Around the Yard p. 4
Roadsides & byways p. 5
Other Garden Events p. 5
Calender p. 6
What's On the Web p. 6
2008 Speaker List p. 7
Castanea pumila, John
Pickering, discoverlife.com
Goodyera pubescens leaf, up close
2
Botanically Speaking
The Time of the Seeds
This part of the gardening year could legitimately be called "the time of the seeds". Yes, some of the spring
bloomers (mostly the ephemerals) did finish up their seeds long ago, but those of many others are just now
ripening - dogwood (Cornus sp.), Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
among others, and many of the summer plants also - milkweeds (Asclepias sp.), beardtongues (Penstemon
sp.) and more.
It makes sense - no matter when in the season, speaking as a plant, you start making seeds, you really need to
have them done by the time killing frosts arrive. If you bloom later, then you have to mature seeds faster.
Seeds and the structures that accompany them, and often help to disperse them in some way, are really one of
the unique benefits of this time of year in the garden. There are big bright clusters of berries, such as the
various aroids (Arum italicum, Dracunculus vulgaris, and the already mentioned Arisaema triphyllum). There
are the "cones" of the coneflowers (Echinacea sp. and hybrids), the plumes of the many grasses, the poofing
pods of milkweeds (Asclepias sp.) and their relatives, in addition to all of the nuts, berries, and other fruits on
the trees and shrubs. It's a busy time of year for those of us who collect seeds.
That's not to ignore all of the things still flowering, which will - amazingly - still mostly get their seeds ripe
by the time winter gets here. Speaking of which, have you ever accidenally mowed an orchid with your riding
lawn mower? If you have, it was probably this time of year, and very likely you didn't even notice.
Cathy was mowing our yard during one of the rare dry times last weekend, and spotted an orchid blooming
away, right out there in the grass. Of course, she is pretty careful when she mows, and knew to watch for
them, but it was still good spotting.
We're fortunate to have a great variety of wild orchids here in Arkansas, about 30 if you include varieties as
well as species. They range from the large and showy lady-slippers (Cypripedium sp.) which rival any of the
tropical orchids for size and elegance, through the grass-pinks (Calopogon sp.) that bloomed on the prairies
back in May, to very small orchids that hide amongst the grass in our lawns.
This one was a "ladies tress" orchid, one of several in the genus Spiranthes that grow here in Arkansas. They
are called this because of the way their flowers spiral around the grass-like stem. This particular one is
probably Spiranthes lacera. Many of you probably grow, or have seen, the "Chadd's Ford" ladies tress, a
selected form of another species, whose full name is the intimidating Spiranthes cernua forma odorata
"Chadd's Ford".
We looked around the yard and found a total of five stems. We've seen others in different places in other
years, so we know there are more. Though small - the individual flowers are less than a quarter of an inch
wide - if you look at them closely they are clearly orchid flowers and just as beautiful on that scale as any of
the big tropical ones.
Most of the other fall-blooming Arkansas orchids are sheltered woodlanders, like the rattlesnake plantain
(Goodyera pubescens) with its wonderfully patterned foliage, or the bizarre fall coral-root orchid
(Corallorhiza odontorhiza), which doesn't have leaves and lives most of the year as nothing but roots. But
(continued on next page)
3
these Spiranthes are tough - they are growing right out there with the grass, in areas that have been mowed
lawn for at least 30 years, and were cow pasture before they were lawn, with no special treatment or extra
water in the summer.
The tie-in from these orchids back to the time of the seeds is that orchids, because of their unusual strategy,
are surely among the most prolific seed-producers of all plants. Most plants, when sending their offspring out
into the world, equip it with a food supply called the endosperm which helps it grow that first leaf or two
(depending, of course, on whether it is a monocotyledon or a dicotyledon) to make its own food. Orchids, like
botanical Robert Frosts, chose the road less traveled - rather than spending energy on the endosperm, they just
make more seeds. Lots more seeds. Sometimes millions of seeds in a single seed capsule, all thrown out there
with no food supply.
They rely, as the saying goes, on the kindness of strangers. If an orchid seed lands in just the right spot, where
there is a compatible fungus growing, they may strike up an acquaintance in which each supplies some
nutrients to the other, at least for a while until the orchid gets a leaf or two up and running, after which it
doesn't need the fungus at all and moves on with its life. (I know I'm making the orchid sound like some sort
of botanical cad who divorces the poor hard-working fungus that put it through school once it graduates, but
that's part of my plan. Based on what I see on the television schedule these days I clearly need that sort of
emotional drama to get ratings for this column up. Besides, sometimes the fungus doesn't wait for the divorce
- it just overwhelms and kills the orchid seed, so it's not completely one-sided.)
As a result, orchid seed is dust-like, and the chances that each one will germinate are very low. But there are
so very many of them that even a very small percentage is enough.
Anyway, melodrama aside, as you are out in your gardens enjoying the time of the seeds, keep an eye out for
the orchids in your lawn.
Steve
Steve Marak gardens in Springdale AR
Cypripedium
kentuckiense, tall yellow
ladies slippert
Plantanthera lacera
Tipularia discolor
Calopogon
oklahomensis
Liparis lilifolia
Tipularia discolor leaves
Spiranthes
lacera, up close
4
In the Greenhouse now
Lithops sp.....my other pot of
lithops blooms in October. I
thought these were the same
species but maybe not........
Around the Yard..................
It is hard to see but can you
guess what the blue material is
that the bird used in it's nest?
Yes bits from an old tarp.
This bagworm has
added juniper berries
to his case.
Sauromatum venosum, one of
Steve's aroids in seed. Notice
the attractive pattern on the
stems.
Spiranthes lacera, in
our yard.
We've seen these ladies
tresses in the yard in
previous years. This year
when we discovered them
(three in all) at various
locations we took a lot of
pictures and then decided
maybe we should stop
mowing the lawn in
August every year to give
them time to show
themselves.
Gomphocarpus fruticosus, a
milkweed family plant, in fruit
above and in flower below. We
purchased this at the FGNS
Garden Party.
Seven Sons Tree, Heptacodium
miconioides.
Elephantopus tomentosus, a
native that volunteered in a dry
shade area. This is the first year
we've seen it there.
Can you see the frog?
Macroclinium manabinum orchid Macroclinium manabinum
orchid
5
Other Garden Events
Friends of Honor Heights Park is sponsoring a worm composting workshop Saturday, October 17 from 9 a.m. to 10:30
a.m. in the Garden Education Room at Muskogee's Honor Heights Park
Learn how to improve your garden while helping the Earth. Worm composting reduces landfill and provides non-
chemical fertilizer for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs.
Participants should bring a plastic container 1 to 3 feet tall and 2 feet long to hold your worms, their food and shredded
newspaper bedding. We will drill holes in your container and provide enough red wriggler worms to start a home system.
In addition to materials on home vermicomposting, Bruce Edwards, Urban Harvest Director for the Regional Food Bank
of Oklahoma, will teach commercial worm composting. Vermicomposting helps keep kitchen waste out of the landfills.
The workshop is a fundraiser for Friends of Honor Heights Park Association.
Workshop Fee: Members $15 and Non-members $25. You can join Friends that day.
Information and Registration: Martha Stoodley 918.683.2373 or Honorheightsfriends@gmail.com
White River Nursery
Customer Appreciation Days!!
October 2nd and 3rd
Friday 8- 6 pm
Saturday 9-6 pm
Drawings for free plants
10% off sale on our current nursery stock
Drawings for free on-site consultations to help with your gardens (NWA only)
Snacks and beverages
We hope to see you there. Thank you for supporting your Local Business.
Roadsides and Byways
5635 East Huntsville Rd. Fayetteville, Ar
Contact us at wrwnursery.com
or call 442-2061
Aureolaria flava, false
yellow foxglove.
Goodyera pubescens,
rattlesnake orchid,
plantain orchid, leaves
above flowers below.Aplectrum
hyemale, Adam
and Eve orchid,
seed pod above
and leaf below.
Triphora trianthophora,
threebirds orchid.
Fungi
Lindera benzoin,
spicebush
Staphylea
trifolia,
bladder-nut.
6
All are welcome to join the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas.
MEMBERSHIP—2009
For membership, clip and return to Jean Faris, 2511 Meandering Way, Fayetteville, AR 72701.
Name(s) __________________________________________________________phone_________________
Family Members__________________________________________________________________________
Address ____________________________________________City/Zip _____________________________
E-Mail __________________________________________________Fax ____________________________
Main Interests____________________________________________________________________________
Type of Membership: New____ Renew____ $15 Individual $20 Family # years in area ____
Please include names of family members, ages of child(ren), and * those who need cards and name tags.
Memberships are annual (January-December) and renewable in December.
Make checks payable to FGNS of NWA (The Flower, Garden and Nature Society of
Northwest Arkansas).
For more information regarding membership, call Jeanne Silvestri 479-587-1785
Calendar of Event
September
19
Steven Bost
Founder, Ozark
Chinquapin
Foundation
“Restoration of the
Ozark Chinquapin”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
October
17
Carl Smith
U of A Horticulture
Professor and author
“Residential
Landscape
Sustainability”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
November
21
Theo Whitsell
Arkansas Heritage
Commission
“Rare Habitats and
New Wildflower
Species”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
Whats on the WEB?
Check out the webpage for the Ozark
Chinquapin Society
http://www.ozarkchinquapin.com/
Contribute to the newsletter!
Tell us where you've been, what you've
grown, or what you have seen around
town. Ask us to help you solve a garden
problem or identify a plant. The newsletter
is better with your contributions.
Cathy Marak, FGNS Newsletter Editor
clmarak@cox.net
2009 Laurin Wheeler Program Series
Flower, Garden and Nature Society of NWAR
January 17 Round-table discussion
February 21 Joyce Mendenhall, Washington County Master Gardener and garden writer for Arkansas
Gardener, “Garden Whimsy.”
March 21 Joe Neal/Joe Woolbright, “Chesney Prairie Restoration: Wildflowers.”
April 18 Carol Reese, “Plant Lore: The Birds and the Bees of Plants” Ornamental Horticulture Specialist,
University of Tennessee Extension Service, garden columnist for the Jackson Sun and
Horticulture Magazine and co-host of a regional television program “Earth Tones.”
May 9 Field trip to Chesney Prairie Natural Area, near Siloam Springs, led by Joe Woolbright.
May 16 Joyce Hale, local environmental activist, “Water Harvesting and Cisterns.”
June 6* Garden Party
July 18 Susan Borné, “Nature Conservancy Work and Major Projects.”
August 15 Gerald Klingaman, UA Horticulture Professor Emeritus, “The Quest for a Sustainable Garden”
September 19Steven Bost, founder Ozark Chinquapin Foundation, “Restoration of the Ozark Chinquapin”
October 17 Carl Smith, UA Horticulture Professor and author of a book on “Residential Landscape
Sustainability”
November 21 Theo Witsell, Arkansas Heritage Commission, “Rare Habitats and New Wildflower Species.”
Social time begins at 9:30 with the programs starting around 10:00 a.m. Contact: Lynn Rogers, 479-841-8759
7
From the President........
The dogwood berries are bright red-orange in our yard,
spicebush berries in the woods are ripe and the Jack-in-
the-pulpit fruits are little clumps of red here and there ... it
must be fall. With all the rain we've gotten lately, the fall
bloomers are really showing their stuff, and the cool
nights are causing lots of orchids to flower in the
greenhouse.
Of course that means there's lots of work to be done
readying the garden for winter, but then I never get it all
done anyway, so maybe I'll just keep on ignoring it. It's
worked so far.
This Saturday we have something I think will be very
interesting. Most people know of the virtual elimination of
the American elm tree by Dutch elm disease, and the
efforts to bring it back. Far fewer are aware of the similar
situation with the American chestnut and Ozark
chinquapin, which have been nearly wiped out by chestnut
blight. We will hear about efforts to restore the Ozark
chinquapin by the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation.
See you on Saturday,
Steve
September 2009
Volume 14 Number 9
We come from the earth
we return to the earth
and in between
we garden.
THE FLOWER, GARDEN, AND NATURE SOCIETY OF NORTHWEST
ARKANSAS
FGNS Officers
Steve Marak
President
3460 Roma Drive
Springdale, AR 72762
H 479 271-5278
samarak@cox.net
Heather Cook
Vice-president
4436 Highland Knolls Rd
Rogers, AR 72758
H 479 366-9067
aacook@cox.net
Mary Bess Mulhollan
Secretary
3917 East Caston Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 442-7333
marybess@cox.net
Jean Faris
Treasurer
2511 Meandering Way
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 443-1986
jeanfaris@sbcglobal.net
Gail Pianalto
Past President
P.O. Box 444
Tontitown, AR 72770
H 479 361-2198
pgp31@cox.net
___________________
Paula Marinoni
Founder
617 W. Lafayette
Fayetteville, AR 72701
H 479 444-6170
pm@paulamarinoni.com
Join us Saturday
September 19
for the presentation:
“Restoration of the Ozark
Chinquapin”
**New location**
Northwest Technical Institute
709 South Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR
(1/2 mile South of Jones Center on
Hwy 265) Enter at south door.
Inside
President's Message p. 1
Botanically
Speaking p. 2
In The Greenhouse p. 4
Around the Yard p. 4
Roadsides & byways p. 5
Other Garden Events p. 5
Calender p. 6
What's On the Web p. 6
2008 Speaker List p. 7
Castanea pumila, John
Pickering, discoverlife.com
Goodyera pubescens leaf, up close
2
Botanically Speaking
The Time of the Seeds
This part of the gardening year could legitimately be called "the time of the seeds". Yes, some of the spring
bloomers (mostly the ephemerals) did finish up their seeds long ago, but those of many others are just now
ripening - dogwood (Cornus sp.), Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
among others, and many of the summer plants also - milkweeds (Asclepias sp.), beardtongues (Penstemon
sp.) and more.
It makes sense - no matter when in the season, speaking as a plant, you start making seeds, you really need to
have them done by the time killing frosts arrive. If you bloom later, then you have to mature seeds faster.
Seeds and the structures that accompany them, and often help to disperse them in some way, are really one of
the unique benefits of this time of year in the garden. There are big bright clusters of berries, such as the
various aroids (Arum italicum, Dracunculus vulgaris, and the already mentioned Arisaema triphyllum). There
are the "cones" of the coneflowers (Echinacea sp. and hybrids), the plumes of the many grasses, the poofing
pods of milkweeds (Asclepias sp.) and their relatives, in addition to all of the nuts, berries, and other fruits on
the trees and shrubs. It's a busy time of year for those of us who collect seeds.
That's not to ignore all of the things still flowering, which will - amazingly - still mostly get their seeds ripe
by the time winter gets here. Speaking of which, have you ever accidenally mowed an orchid with your riding
lawn mower? If you have, it was probably this time of year, and very likely you didn't even notice.
Cathy was mowing our yard during one of the rare dry times last weekend, and spotted an orchid blooming
away, right out there in the grass. Of course, she is pretty careful when she mows, and knew to watch for
them, but it was still good spotting.
We're fortunate to have a great variety of wild orchids here in Arkansas, about 30 if you include varieties as
well as species. They range from the large and showy lady-slippers (Cypripedium sp.) which rival any of the
tropical orchids for size and elegance, through the grass-pinks (Calopogon sp.) that bloomed on the prairies
back in May, to very small orchids that hide amongst the grass in our lawns.
This one was a "ladies tress" orchid, one of several in the genus Spiranthes that grow here in Arkansas. They
are called this because of the way their flowers spiral around the grass-like stem. This particular one is
probably Spiranthes lacera. Many of you probably grow, or have seen, the "Chadd's Ford" ladies tress, a
selected form of another species, whose full name is the intimidating Spiranthes cernua forma odorata
"Chadd's Ford".
We looked around the yard and found a total of five stems. We've seen others in different places in other
years, so we know there are more. Though small - the individual flowers are less than a quarter of an inch
wide - if you look at them closely they are clearly orchid flowers and just as beautiful on that scale as any of
the big tropical ones.
Most of the other fall-blooming Arkansas orchids are sheltered woodlanders, like the rattlesnake plantain
(Goodyera pubescens) with its wonderfully patterned foliage, or the bizarre fall coral-root orchid
(Corallorhiza odontorhiza), which doesn't have leaves and lives most of the year as nothing but roots. But
(continued on next page)
3
these Spiranthes are tough - they are growing right out there with the grass, in areas that have been mowed
lawn for at least 30 years, and were cow pasture before they were lawn, with no special treatment or extra
water in the summer.
The tie-in from these orchids back to the time of the seeds is that orchids, because of their unusual strategy,
are surely among the most prolific seed-producers of all plants. Most plants, when sending their offspring out
into the world, equip it with a food supply called the endosperm which helps it grow that first leaf or two
(depending, of course, on whether it is a monocotyledon or a dicotyledon) to make its own food. Orchids, like
botanical Robert Frosts, chose the road less traveled - rather than spending energy on the endosperm, they just
make more seeds. Lots more seeds. Sometimes millions of seeds in a single seed capsule, all thrown out there
with no food supply.
They rely, as the saying goes, on the kindness of strangers. If an orchid seed lands in just the right spot, where
there is a compatible fungus growing, they may strike up an acquaintance in which each supplies some
nutrients to the other, at least for a while until the orchid gets a leaf or two up and running, after which it
doesn't need the fungus at all and moves on with its life. (I know I'm making the orchid sound like some sort
of botanical cad who divorces the poor hard-working fungus that put it through school once it graduates, but
that's part of my plan. Based on what I see on the television schedule these days I clearly need that sort of
emotional drama to get ratings for this column up. Besides, sometimes the fungus doesn't wait for the divorce
- it just overwhelms and kills the orchid seed, so it's not completely one-sided.)
As a result, orchid seed is dust-like, and the chances that each one will germinate are very low. But there are
so very many of them that even a very small percentage is enough.
Anyway, melodrama aside, as you are out in your gardens enjoying the time of the seeds, keep an eye out for
the orchids in your lawn.
Steve
Steve Marak gardens in Springdale AR
Cypripedium
kentuckiense, tall yellow
ladies slippert
Plantanthera lacera
Tipularia discolor
Calopogon
oklahomensis
Liparis lilifolia
Tipularia discolor leaves
Spiranthes
lacera, up close
4
In the Greenhouse now
Lithops sp.....my other pot of
lithops blooms in October. I
thought these were the same
species but maybe not........
Around the Yard..................
It is hard to see but can you
guess what the blue material is
that the bird used in it's nest?
Yes bits from an old tarp.
This bagworm has
added juniper berries
to his case.
Sauromatum venosum, one of
Steve's aroids in seed. Notice
the attractive pattern on the
stems.
Spiranthes lacera, in
our yard.
We've seen these ladies
tresses in the yard in
previous years. This year
when we discovered them
(three in all) at various
locations we took a lot of
pictures and then decided
maybe we should stop
mowing the lawn in
August every year to give
them time to show
themselves.
Gomphocarpus fruticosus, a
milkweed family plant, in fruit
above and in flower below. We
purchased this at the FGNS
Garden Party.
Seven Sons Tree, Heptacodium
miconioides.
Elephantopus tomentosus, a
native that volunteered in a dry
shade area. This is the first year
we've seen it there.
Can you see the frog?
Macroclinium manabinum orchid Macroclinium manabinum
orchid
5
Other Garden Events
Friends of Honor Heights Park is sponsoring a worm composting workshop Saturday, October 17 from 9 a.m. to 10:30
a.m. in the Garden Education Room at Muskogee's Honor Heights Park
Learn how to improve your garden while helping the Earth. Worm composting reduces landfill and provides non-
chemical fertilizer for growing flowers, vegetables and herbs.
Participants should bring a plastic container 1 to 3 feet tall and 2 feet long to hold your worms, their food and shredded
newspaper bedding. We will drill holes in your container and provide enough red wriggler worms to start a home system.
In addition to materials on home vermicomposting, Bruce Edwards, Urban Harvest Director for the Regional Food Bank
of Oklahoma, will teach commercial worm composting. Vermicomposting helps keep kitchen waste out of the landfills.
The workshop is a fundraiser for Friends of Honor Heights Park Association.
Workshop Fee: Members $15 and Non-members $25. You can join Friends that day.
Information and Registration: Martha Stoodley 918.683.2373 or Honorheightsfriends@gmail.com
White River Nursery
Customer Appreciation Days!!
October 2nd and 3rd
Friday 8- 6 pm
Saturday 9-6 pm
Drawings for free plants
10% off sale on our current nursery stock
Drawings for free on-site consultations to help with your gardens (NWA only)
Snacks and beverages
We hope to see you there. Thank you for supporting your Local Business.
Roadsides and Byways
5635 East Huntsville Rd. Fayetteville, Ar
Contact us at wrwnursery.com
or call 442-2061
Aureolaria flava, false
yellow foxglove.
Goodyera pubescens,
rattlesnake orchid,
plantain orchid, leaves
above flowers below.Aplectrum
hyemale, Adam
and Eve orchid,
seed pod above
and leaf below.
Triphora trianthophora,
threebirds orchid.
Fungi
Lindera benzoin,
spicebush
Staphylea
trifolia,
bladder-nut.
6
All are welcome to join the Flower, Garden and Nature Society of Northwest Arkansas.
MEMBERSHIP—2009
For membership, clip and return to Jean Faris, 2511 Meandering Way, Fayetteville, AR 72701.
Name(s) __________________________________________________________phone_________________
Family Members__________________________________________________________________________
Address ____________________________________________City/Zip _____________________________
E-Mail __________________________________________________Fax ____________________________
Main Interests____________________________________________________________________________
Type of Membership: New____ Renew____ $15 Individual $20 Family # years in area ____
Please include names of family members, ages of child(ren), and * those who need cards and name tags.
Memberships are annual (January-December) and renewable in December.
Make checks payable to FGNS of NWA (The Flower, Garden and Nature Society of
Northwest Arkansas).
For more information regarding membership, call Jeanne Silvestri 479-587-1785
Calendar of Event
September
19
Steven Bost
Founder, Ozark
Chinquapin
Foundation
“Restoration of the
Ozark Chinquapin”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
October
17
Carl Smith
U of A Horticulture
Professor and author
“Residential
Landscape
Sustainability”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
November
21
Theo Whitsell
Arkansas Heritage
Commission
“Rare Habitats and
New Wildflower
Species”
Meetings start at 10:00
with social time at 9:30.
Whats on the WEB?
Check out the webpage for the Ozark
Chinquapin Society
http://www.ozarkchinquapin.com/
Contribute to the newsletter!
Tell us where you've been, what you've
grown, or what you have seen around
town. Ask us to help you solve a garden
problem or identify a plant. The newsletter
is better with your contributions.
Cathy Marak, FGNS Newsletter Editor
clmarak@cox.net
2009 Laurin Wheeler Program Series
Flower, Garden and Nature Society of NWAR
January 17 Round-table discussion
February 21 Joyce Mendenhall, Washington County Master Gardener and garden writer for Arkansas
Gardener, “Garden Whimsy.”
March 21 Joe Neal/Joe Woolbright, “Chesney Prairie Restoration: Wildflowers.”
April 18 Carol Reese, “Plant Lore: The Birds and the Bees of Plants” Ornamental Horticulture Specialist,
University of Tennessee Extension Service, garden columnist for the Jackson Sun and
Horticulture Magazine and co-host of a regional television program “Earth Tones.”
May 9 Field trip to Chesney Prairie Natural Area, near Siloam Springs, led by Joe Woolbright.
May 16 Joyce Hale, local environmental activist, “Water Harvesting and Cisterns.”
June 6* Garden Party
July 18 Susan Borné, “Nature Conservancy Work and Major Projects.”
August 15 Gerald Klingaman, UA Horticulture Professor Emeritus, “The Quest for a Sustainable Garden”
September 19Steven Bost, founder Ozark Chinquapin Foundation, “Restoration of the Ozark Chinquapin”
October 17 Carl Smith, UA Horticulture Professor and author of a book on “Residential Landscape
Sustainability”
November 21 Theo Witsell, Arkansas Heritage Commission, “Rare Habitats and New Wildflower Species.”
Social time begins at 9:30 with the programs starting around 10:00 a.m. Contact: Lynn Rogers, 479-841-8759
7
Friday, September 11, 2009
Open house for green-infrastructure study set for Saturday and Sunday afternoon
Open House Planned For Green Infrastructure Study
LAST UPDATED FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2009 11:33 AM CDT IN NEWS
By THE MORNING NEWS
EMAIL THIS STORY PRINT THIS STORY COMMENT ON THIS STORY
FAYETTEVILLE — The Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association will hold two open house sessions Saturday and Sunday to receive public response on the Regional Green Infrastructure Plan. The plan hopes to take a stretegic approach to preserve and improve natural spaces and waterways in Washington County.
The plan is part of a $25,000 pilot grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service to study 172 square miles in Washington County and identify areas of conservation as well as put in place practices to preserve farmland, forests and waterways.
"Ultimately, this open house is to gain information about what natural features within western Washington county to include in the Regional Green Infrastructure Plan to be presented to Washington County and local cities in the near future," said Kim Hesse, who is working on the project.
The open house meetings will be Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 16142 Pin Oak Road in Fayetteville.
LAST UPDATED FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2009 11:33 AM CDT IN NEWS
By THE MORNING NEWS
EMAIL THIS STORY PRINT THIS STORY COMMENT ON THIS STORY
FAYETTEVILLE — The Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association will hold two open house sessions Saturday and Sunday to receive public response on the Regional Green Infrastructure Plan. The plan hopes to take a stretegic approach to preserve and improve natural spaces and waterways in Washington County.
The plan is part of a $25,000 pilot grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service to study 172 square miles in Washington County and identify areas of conservation as well as put in place practices to preserve farmland, forests and waterways.
"Ultimately, this open house is to gain information about what natural features within western Washington county to include in the Regional Green Infrastructure Plan to be presented to Washington County and local cities in the near future," said Kim Hesse, who is working on the project.
The open house meetings will be Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 16142 Pin Oak Road in Fayetteville.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Webcast on Clean Water Act quality standards FREE by registration
Still Time to Register!
To register, visit http://www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts
Free September Watershed Academy Webcast -- Second in Clean Water Act Series
Join us on Thursday, September 10th at 1-3pm Eastern for an "Introduction to Water Quality Standards," a second in series of Webcasts on the Clean Water Act (CWA). The CWA is the cornerstone of surface water quality protection in the United States and it sets broad goals for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's water. Water quality standards (WQS) are aimed at translating the broad goals of the CWA into waterbody-specific objectives.
Tune into this Webcast to learn about WQS, which are the foundation of the water quality-based pollution control program mandated by the CWA.The Webcast will highlight the three major components of state and tribal water quality standards e.g., designated uses, water quality criteria, antidegradation, and will include a case study of how one state is working to strengthen its WQS program. Future Webcasts will highlight other aspects of the CWA including monitoring and assessment, total maximum daily loads, programs for managing point sources and nonpoint sources, and wetland protection.
Speakers:
Dr. Thomas Gardner, Environmental Scientist, U.S. EPA's National Water Quality Standards Branch; Heather Goss, Physical Scientist, U.S.EPA's National Water Quality Standards Branch; and William (Bill) Cole, Research Scientist, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Water Quality
Standards Unit
To register, visit http://www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts.
To register, visit http://www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts
Free September Watershed Academy Webcast -- Second in Clean Water Act Series
Join us on Thursday, September 10th at 1-3pm Eastern for an "Introduction to Water Quality Standards," a second in series of Webcasts on the Clean Water Act (CWA). The CWA is the cornerstone of surface water quality protection in the United States and it sets broad goals for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's water. Water quality standards (WQS) are aimed at translating the broad goals of the CWA into waterbody-specific objectives.
Tune into this Webcast to learn about WQS, which are the foundation of the water quality-based pollution control program mandated by the CWA.The Webcast will highlight the three major components of state and tribal water quality standards e.g., designated uses, water quality criteria, antidegradation, and will include a case study of how one state is working to strengthen its WQS program. Future Webcasts will highlight other aspects of the CWA including monitoring and assessment, total maximum daily loads, programs for managing point sources and nonpoint sources, and wetland protection.
Speakers:
Dr. Thomas Gardner, Environmental Scientist, U.S. EPA's National Water Quality Standards Branch; Heather Goss, Physical Scientist, U.S.EPA's National Water Quality Standards Branch; and William (Bill) Cole, Research Scientist, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Water Quality
Standards Unit
To register, visit http://www.epa.gov/watershedwebcasts.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Tree and Landscape Committee to meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday
THE CITY OF FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS
Tree & Landscape Advisory Committee
Wade Colwell, Business
John Crone, University Representative
Chris Wilson, Environmental
Vacant, Utility Representative
Paula Larson, Community/Citizen-at-Large
J.P. Peters, Community/Citizen-at-Large
Gayle Howard, Service Organization
David Reynolds, Land Development
Cynthia Cope, Forestry, Landscaping, or Horticulture (Chair)
Greg Howe, Urban Forester
MEETING AGENDA – Wednesday, September 9, 2009
4:00pm Room 216 City Administration Building (City Hall)
Call to Order
Accept or Revise the August 18th meeting minutes.
New Business
1) Celebration of Trees – Fall Update
2) Review a proposed change to the Landscape Manual
3) Tree Escrow Planting – Clabber Creek PH II Update
4) Discussion on permanent meeting day and time
Open Forum
1) Member’s discussions on other areas of concern, ideas or suggestions outside of agenda.
2) Guests and visitors opportunity to address the committee on non-agenda items.
Meeting adjourns
Tree & Landscape Advisory Committee
Wade Colwell, Business
John Crone, University Representative
Chris Wilson, Environmental
Vacant, Utility Representative
Paula Larson, Community/Citizen-at-Large
J.P. Peters, Community/Citizen-at-Large
Gayle Howard, Service Organization
David Reynolds, Land Development
Cynthia Cope, Forestry, Landscaping, or Horticulture (Chair)
Greg Howe, Urban Forester
MEETING AGENDA – Wednesday, September 9, 2009
4:00pm Room 216 City Administration Building (City Hall)
Call to Order
Accept or Revise the August 18th meeting minutes.
New Business
1) Celebration of Trees – Fall Update
2) Review a proposed change to the Landscape Manual
3) Tree Escrow Planting – Clabber Creek PH II Update
4) Discussion on permanent meeting day and time
Open Forum
1) Member’s discussions on other areas of concern, ideas or suggestions outside of agenda.
2) Guests and visitors opportunity to address the committee on non-agenda items.
Meeting adjourns
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Why is no one doing a study such as the one below to determine relationship of seasonal wetland and karst geology of Northwest Arkansas?
http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/karst/kigconference/wfl_ecologicalwetlands.htm
The Ecological Role of the Karst Wetlands of Southern Florida in Relation to System Restoration
By William F. Loftus1, Maria Cristina Bruno2, Kevin J. Cunningham3, Sue Perry2, and Joel C. Trexler4 1 U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Everglades National Park. Homestead, Florida 33034. Bill_Loftus@usgs.gov 2 South Florida Natural Resources Center, Everglades National Park. Homestead, Florida 33034. 3 U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, Miami Subdistrict, Miami, Florida 33178. 4 Florida International University, University Park, Miami, Florida 33199
Download PDF 2.87 MB
Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the report and can be downloaded for free
<--Return to Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
With the recent funding of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), the largest ecosystem restoration program ever attempted, there is a pressing need to be able to detect changes in natural habitats as a result of restoration actions. Human activities, particularly the construction of canals and levees that can either drain or flood wetlands, have affected the natural variability of environmental conditions (Gunderson and Loftus 1993). CERP intends to restore natural hydropatterns to areas that have been damaged by water management. Baseline data on constituent aquatic communities and their ecology are needed before, during, and after the restoration activities commence.
Freshwater fishes and invertebrates are important ecosystem components in the Everglades/Big Cypress system. They operate at several trophic levels in the wetlands, from primary consumers of plant material and detritus to carnivores and scavengers. Factors that influence fish and invertebrate numbers, biomass, and composition therefore affect energy flow through the wetlands. The ecology and life histories of these animals are intimately tied to the hydrology of the wetlands, which is determined mainly by rainfall, but increasingly by water-management practices. Because of the hydrological changes wrought by drainage and impoundment, and the loss of spatial extent and functioning of former wetlands to development (Gunderson and Loftus 1993), there is little doubt that standing crops and overall numbers have declined. Changes to the original ecosystem have also altered the timing and the areas of prey availability to predators. Non-native fishes have colonized natural and disturbed habitats during the past three decades. Non-native fishes have affected native animals through predation, nest-site competition, and habitat disturbance (Loftus 1988) and may divert food-web energy into biomass unavailable to top-level predators.
Aquatic animals in southern Florida wetlands have a variety of ways to cope with environmental variability. These include movements to find refuge from drying habitats in winter and spring, and dispersal away from those refuges with the onset of the wet season (Kushlan 1974, Loftus and Kushlan 1987). This pattern of movements among habitats with fluctuating water depths is common to seasonal wetlands in the tropics (Lowe-McConnell 1987, Machado-Allison 1993). The major natural refuge habitat most-studied by scientists in southern Florida is the alligator hole (Craighead 1968, Kushlan 1974, Nelson and Loftus 1996). Canals and ditches offer a relatively recent but spatially extensive form of artificial refuge for aquatic animals on the landscape (Loftus and Kushlan 1987). In this study, we are studying the function of other types of aquatic refuges in the Everglades.
The Rocky Glades, or Rockland, habitat is a karstic wetland unique to Everglades National Park (ENP) in southern Florida (Figure 1), although similar habitats exist elsewhere in Yucatan, Cuba, and the Bahamas. Approximately half of the original area of this habitat occurs outside of ENP where agricultural and urban development has forever altered its geological structure and ecological function. This region is a high priority for restoration in CERP because it is the largest remnant, short-hydroperiod wetland in the eastern Everglades. That habitat has been disproportionately lost from the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the habitat remaining in ENP has been degraded by water management (Loftus et al. 1992).
Figure 1. Locations of the study sites within the Rocky Glades and Atlantic Coastal Ridge in southern Florida. The numbers indicate the drift-fence arrays on the main park road, and the stars on the coastal ridge are the well sites with Miami cave crayfish.
The highly eroded karst structure of the Rocky Glades appears to be responsible for the persistence of aquatic-animal communities by offering dry-season refuge in thousands of solution holes of varying depths, (Loftus et al. 1992). Their work was the first to indicate a tight relationship among the biological, geological, and hydrologic components of this region. Loftus et al. (1992) also found evidence that aquatic animals disperse, feed, and reproduce on the wetland surface during the short flooding period, then retreat below ground for periods of months to years. They also reported that several introduced species, particularly the pike killifish (Belonesox belizanus), walking catfish (Clarias batrachus), Mayan cichlid (Cichlasoma urophthalmus), and black acara (Cichlasoma bimaculatum) were common in the Rocky Glades (Loftus et al. 1992). Unfortunately, their study was interrupted by Hurricane Andrew and not continued.
In this paper, we report the rationale and results of the first year of a new study in which the primary goal is to define the interactions of the aquatic-animal community with the geologic structure and hydrologic conditions of the Rocky Glades. We are addressing questions that have arisen from past work there. How do composition, size-structure, and recruitment of aquatic animals change during the flooding period? Are the dispersal patterns of animals related to water flow? Are the animals dispersing from the main sloughs to recolonize the Rocky Glades, or is the Rocky Glades a source of animal colonists for the sloughs? Do roadways act as barriers to movement? The objectives of this study segment are:
• Collect baseline ecological data on the epigean aquatic communities in the karst landscape of the Rocky Glades.
•
•
• Quantify the direction and degree of dispersal by fishes and invertebrates during the wet season.
•
•
• Document the seasonal changes in species composition, size structure, and reproductive patterns of animals on the wetland surface.
•
•
• Survey the topography of representative areas of the Rocky Glades, particularly around the sampling sites, to provide depth-distribution data for the simulation model of the region.
•
•
• Develop a visual survey method for sampling fish communities in open, rugged terrain to follow community dynamics in the Rocky Glades in the wet season.
•
•
• Identify the extent of near-surface voids.
The Atlantic Coastal Ridge is another area affected by urbanization and changing hydrologic management (Figure 1). Aquatic habitats, such as the transverse glades that cut through the Ridge, have been replaced by canals and will not be restored. Ground-water habitats and animal communities may have been less affected. As in karst areas elsewhere, deeper geological formations (>5 m) beneath the Rocky Glades and the Atlantic Coastal Ridge have voids of various dimensions known to house truly subterranean aquatic species (Radice and Loftus 1995, Bruno et al., this volume). These include the Miami Cave Crayfish (Procambarus milleri), known only from a few wells in southern Florida (Hobbs 1971). The composition, distribution, and abundance of other hypogean animals are poorly known. Ground-water withdrawal and saltwater intrusion (Leach et al. 1972), limestone mining, and pollution may threaten these communities before they have been fully catalogued. Elsewhere in the world, such communities are known to be very sensitive to changes in their delicately balanced physical environment. The second goal of this project is to identify the composition, distribution by depth and space, and ecological relations of this subterranean fauna. The objectives of the second study element include:
• Develop effective traps to capture invertebrates and possibly fishes from subterranean habitats.
• Inventory hypogean communities and relate the composition and distribution to environmental factors.
• Collect life-history data for the Miami cave crayfish from a large captive population.
METHODS
This first project year has been a pilot study to test designs and methods. The study is divided into two elements with several components each.
Element 1: In the Rocky Glades, we selected four sites along the ENP main road (Figure 1) to test the use of drift-fence arrays to describe directional animal dispersal and community successional patterns in the wet season. The four X-shaped arrays had 12-m wings made of black plastic ground cloth (Figure 2) to direct animals into one of 3 traps that faced east, north, and west, based on the direction that they were moving (Figure 2). The road shoulder formed a barrier to the south of each array. The 3-mm mesh minnow traps were fished overnight for 24 h to provide data on fish relative abundances, movements, and catch per unit effort (CPUE).
The Ecological Role of the Karst Wetlands of Southern Florida in Relation to System Restoration
By William F. Loftus1, Maria Cristina Bruno2, Kevin J. Cunningham3, Sue Perry2, and Joel C. Trexler4 1 U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Everglades National Park. Homestead, Florida 33034. Bill_Loftus@usgs.gov 2 South Florida Natural Resources Center, Everglades National Park. Homestead, Florida 33034. 3 U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, Miami Subdistrict, Miami, Florida 33178. 4 Florida International University, University Park, Miami, Florida 33199
Download PDF 2.87 MB
Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view the report and can be downloaded for free
<--Return to Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
With the recent funding of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), the largest ecosystem restoration program ever attempted, there is a pressing need to be able to detect changes in natural habitats as a result of restoration actions. Human activities, particularly the construction of canals and levees that can either drain or flood wetlands, have affected the natural variability of environmental conditions (Gunderson and Loftus 1993). CERP intends to restore natural hydropatterns to areas that have been damaged by water management. Baseline data on constituent aquatic communities and their ecology are needed before, during, and after the restoration activities commence.
Freshwater fishes and invertebrates are important ecosystem components in the Everglades/Big Cypress system. They operate at several trophic levels in the wetlands, from primary consumers of plant material and detritus to carnivores and scavengers. Factors that influence fish and invertebrate numbers, biomass, and composition therefore affect energy flow through the wetlands. The ecology and life histories of these animals are intimately tied to the hydrology of the wetlands, which is determined mainly by rainfall, but increasingly by water-management practices. Because of the hydrological changes wrought by drainage and impoundment, and the loss of spatial extent and functioning of former wetlands to development (Gunderson and Loftus 1993), there is little doubt that standing crops and overall numbers have declined. Changes to the original ecosystem have also altered the timing and the areas of prey availability to predators. Non-native fishes have colonized natural and disturbed habitats during the past three decades. Non-native fishes have affected native animals through predation, nest-site competition, and habitat disturbance (Loftus 1988) and may divert food-web energy into biomass unavailable to top-level predators.
Aquatic animals in southern Florida wetlands have a variety of ways to cope with environmental variability. These include movements to find refuge from drying habitats in winter and spring, and dispersal away from those refuges with the onset of the wet season (Kushlan 1974, Loftus and Kushlan 1987). This pattern of movements among habitats with fluctuating water depths is common to seasonal wetlands in the tropics (Lowe-McConnell 1987, Machado-Allison 1993). The major natural refuge habitat most-studied by scientists in southern Florida is the alligator hole (Craighead 1968, Kushlan 1974, Nelson and Loftus 1996). Canals and ditches offer a relatively recent but spatially extensive form of artificial refuge for aquatic animals on the landscape (Loftus and Kushlan 1987). In this study, we are studying the function of other types of aquatic refuges in the Everglades.
The Rocky Glades, or Rockland, habitat is a karstic wetland unique to Everglades National Park (ENP) in southern Florida (Figure 1), although similar habitats exist elsewhere in Yucatan, Cuba, and the Bahamas. Approximately half of the original area of this habitat occurs outside of ENP where agricultural and urban development has forever altered its geological structure and ecological function. This region is a high priority for restoration in CERP because it is the largest remnant, short-hydroperiod wetland in the eastern Everglades. That habitat has been disproportionately lost from the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the habitat remaining in ENP has been degraded by water management (Loftus et al. 1992).
Figure 1. Locations of the study sites within the Rocky Glades and Atlantic Coastal Ridge in southern Florida. The numbers indicate the drift-fence arrays on the main park road, and the stars on the coastal ridge are the well sites with Miami cave crayfish.
The highly eroded karst structure of the Rocky Glades appears to be responsible for the persistence of aquatic-animal communities by offering dry-season refuge in thousands of solution holes of varying depths, (Loftus et al. 1992). Their work was the first to indicate a tight relationship among the biological, geological, and hydrologic components of this region. Loftus et al. (1992) also found evidence that aquatic animals disperse, feed, and reproduce on the wetland surface during the short flooding period, then retreat below ground for periods of months to years. They also reported that several introduced species, particularly the pike killifish (Belonesox belizanus), walking catfish (Clarias batrachus), Mayan cichlid (Cichlasoma urophthalmus), and black acara (Cichlasoma bimaculatum) were common in the Rocky Glades (Loftus et al. 1992). Unfortunately, their study was interrupted by Hurricane Andrew and not continued.
In this paper, we report the rationale and results of the first year of a new study in which the primary goal is to define the interactions of the aquatic-animal community with the geologic structure and hydrologic conditions of the Rocky Glades. We are addressing questions that have arisen from past work there. How do composition, size-structure, and recruitment of aquatic animals change during the flooding period? Are the dispersal patterns of animals related to water flow? Are the animals dispersing from the main sloughs to recolonize the Rocky Glades, or is the Rocky Glades a source of animal colonists for the sloughs? Do roadways act as barriers to movement? The objectives of this study segment are:
• Collect baseline ecological data on the epigean aquatic communities in the karst landscape of the Rocky Glades.
•
•
• Quantify the direction and degree of dispersal by fishes and invertebrates during the wet season.
•
•
• Document the seasonal changes in species composition, size structure, and reproductive patterns of animals on the wetland surface.
•
•
• Survey the topography of representative areas of the Rocky Glades, particularly around the sampling sites, to provide depth-distribution data for the simulation model of the region.
•
•
• Develop a visual survey method for sampling fish communities in open, rugged terrain to follow community dynamics in the Rocky Glades in the wet season.
•
•
• Identify the extent of near-surface voids.
The Atlantic Coastal Ridge is another area affected by urbanization and changing hydrologic management (Figure 1). Aquatic habitats, such as the transverse glades that cut through the Ridge, have been replaced by canals and will not be restored. Ground-water habitats and animal communities may have been less affected. As in karst areas elsewhere, deeper geological formations (>5 m) beneath the Rocky Glades and the Atlantic Coastal Ridge have voids of various dimensions known to house truly subterranean aquatic species (Radice and Loftus 1995, Bruno et al., this volume). These include the Miami Cave Crayfish (Procambarus milleri), known only from a few wells in southern Florida (Hobbs 1971). The composition, distribution, and abundance of other hypogean animals are poorly known. Ground-water withdrawal and saltwater intrusion (Leach et al. 1972), limestone mining, and pollution may threaten these communities before they have been fully catalogued. Elsewhere in the world, such communities are known to be very sensitive to changes in their delicately balanced physical environment. The second goal of this project is to identify the composition, distribution by depth and space, and ecological relations of this subterranean fauna. The objectives of the second study element include:
• Develop effective traps to capture invertebrates and possibly fishes from subterranean habitats.
• Inventory hypogean communities and relate the composition and distribution to environmental factors.
• Collect life-history data for the Miami cave crayfish from a large captive population.
METHODS
This first project year has been a pilot study to test designs and methods. The study is divided into two elements with several components each.
Element 1: In the Rocky Glades, we selected four sites along the ENP main road (Figure 1) to test the use of drift-fence arrays to describe directional animal dispersal and community successional patterns in the wet season. The four X-shaped arrays had 12-m wings made of black plastic ground cloth (Figure 2) to direct animals into one of 3 traps that faced east, north, and west, based on the direction that they were moving (Figure 2). The road shoulder formed a barrier to the south of each array. The 3-mm mesh minnow traps were fished overnight for 24 h to provide data on fish relative abundances, movements, and catch per unit effort (CPUE).
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Liatris aspera a showy Arkansas native prairie plant
Please click on images of blazing star to go to Flickr and use magnifying tool above pictures to enlarge one or two sizes!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Video from the Fayetteville National Cemetery with Washington County Livestock Auction barn in the background
Please go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7295307@N02
to see some of today's photos online. My picasa gigabite is full!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7295307@N02
to see some of today's photos online. My picasa gigabite is full!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Karst map of NW Arkansas significant tool for identifying green infrastructure deserving of protection
Please click on images to ENLARGE to read and see detail.
http://watershedwarrior.blogspot.com
The Town Branch Neighborhood is the smallest rectangle on that map. Enlarge the chart to read it.
Our neighborhood is a small hotspot for groundwater recharge and you can see how the wetland with springs and depressed land coincides with the karst coloring when you click and blow up the map.
Although the Nature Conservancy guys who created it admit that more ontheground investigation (and underground) to confirm a stricter scientific map is needed, it matches what I have believed about our neighborhood for some time. You can see the national cemetery circle with the karst just to the north along the old alley between Gov ave and Hill ave and pinnacle and wpwp are bright as is my own yard!
Please note one particular error. Cato Springs Branch, a northeast-flowing tributary of the Town Branch, is mistakenly called the Town Branch on the map. The oldest available government maps mark the portion of the Town Branch that flows from the UA and through our neighborhood as the Town Branch.
This is a significant tool for working on green-infrastructure plans and the FNHA already has it but in PDFs, which I can't post on the blogs.
Aubrey James Shepherd
http://watershedwarrior.blogspot.com
The Town Branch Neighborhood is the smallest rectangle on that map. Enlarge the chart to read it.
Our neighborhood is a small hotspot for groundwater recharge and you can see how the wetland with springs and depressed land coincides with the karst coloring when you click and blow up the map.
Although the Nature Conservancy guys who created it admit that more ontheground investigation (and underground) to confirm a stricter scientific map is needed, it matches what I have believed about our neighborhood for some time. You can see the national cemetery circle with the karst just to the north along the old alley between Gov ave and Hill ave and pinnacle and wpwp are bright as is my own yard!
Please note one particular error. Cato Springs Branch, a northeast-flowing tributary of the Town Branch, is mistakenly called the Town Branch on the map. The oldest available government maps mark the portion of the Town Branch that flows from the UA and through our neighborhood as the Town Branch.
This is a significant tool for working on green-infrastructure plans and the FNHA already has it but in PDFs, which I can't post on the blogs.
Aubrey James Shepherd
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Albino crayfish in the Ozarks diverse but may be in a spring or cavern beneath your yard
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of tiny young cave crayfish on August 18, 2009. Another reason to avoid building on land known to be
Please click on image to enlarge view of tiniest variety of gray hairstreak butterfly on a tiny seed portion of grass hanging over the edge of a street near downtown Fayetteville, Arkansas. People who choose to "naturalize" their yards in accordance with a new Fayetteville ordinance would have lots of these this time of summer in Fayetteville. Yes, these are so small their color patterns aren't easy to see without a zoom lens, they are truly magnificent and are a better thing to see in one's yard than a mass of monoculture grass mowed near the ground.
Why hasn't the park department stopped mowing large areas of the city parks as the mayor suggested many months ago. The fuel and labor costs of mowing seriously hurt the park budget in a desperate time.
Please click on image to enlarge view of tiniest variety of gray hairstreak butterfly on a tiny seed portion of grass hanging over the edge of a street near downtown Fayetteville, Arkansas. People who choose to "naturalize" their yards in accordance with a new Fayetteville ordinance would have lots of these this time of summer in Fayetteville. Yes, these are so small their color patterns aren't easy to see without a zoom lens, they are truly magnificent and are a better thing to see in one's yard than a mass of monoculture grass mowed near the ground.
Why hasn't the park department stopped mowing large areas of the city parks as the mayor suggested many months ago. The fuel and labor costs of mowing seriously hurt the park budget in a desperate time.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Town Branch neighborhood shows up on Karst map
Town Branch neighborhood shows up on the map of karst features in northwest Arkansas.
Please click on the images to ENLARGE view. Town Branch neighborhood is at the center of the third photo, near the left in the middle photo. One of the brightest areas marked as a high-priority karst ground-water recharge area on the map is the World Peace Wetland Prairie and adjacent Pinnacle Foods Inc. wet-prairie land. Another is along Indian Trail Street from Razorback Road east to the Railroad. A smaller but equally important karst wetland recharge area is north of the Fayetteville National Cemetery and the Washington County Livestock Auction property. The Hill Place (former Aspen Ridge) student-apartment project was built on fill dirt atop some of the neighborhood's karst wetland recharge area.
Please click on the images to ENLARGE view. Town Branch neighborhood is at the center of the third photo, near the left in the middle photo. One of the brightest areas marked as a high-priority karst ground-water recharge area on the map is the World Peace Wetland Prairie and adjacent Pinnacle Foods Inc. wet-prairie land. Another is along Indian Trail Street from Razorback Road east to the Railroad. A smaller but equally important karst wetland recharge area is north of the Fayetteville National Cemetery and the Washington County Livestock Auction property. The Hill Place (former Aspen Ridge) student-apartment project was built on fill dirt atop some of the neighborhood's karst wetland recharge area.
Northwest Arkansas Times reports that Senator Pryor pledges support to buy sale-barn property
Please click on images to read August 12, 2009, Northwest Arkansas Times stories on Senator Mark Pryor supporting acquisition of sale-barn property for addition to the Fayetteville National Cemetery and story about possible delay in vote on sale-barn property until first council meeting in September.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Asclepias viridiflora (short-green milkweed) westside of WPWP on August 6, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of short-green milkweed (Asclepias viridflora) on August 6, 2009.
Short Green Milkweed
Asclepias viridiflora
Milkweed family (Asclepiadaceae)
Description: This native perennial plant is 1½–2' tall and unbranched. The central stem is light green and usually slightly pubescent, otherwise it is glabrous. The leaves are usually opposite and angle strongly upward from the stem, otherwise they are alternate. They are up to 5" long and 1¾" across, and are usually lanceolate with short petioles. Because this is a variable species, the leaves can assume other forms as well. A typical leaf has a prominent central vein and smooth margins that gently undulate up and down. It is often slightly pubescent, otherwise glabrous. A single umbel of flowers may appear from the axils of the upper pairs of leaves. A typical plant will have 1-3 umbels, with each umbel consisting of 15-30 flowers. Each umbel has a short stalk and hangs downward. Each flower is about 1/3" long, consisting of 5 upper hoods and 5 deflexed petals. The hoods are without horns, and the central reproductive column is very short or absent. Instead, there are masses of winged pollinia. The flowers are light green to green, becoming yellowish green or purplish green as they age. Their pedicels are about ½" long and hairy. The blooming period occurs during early summer and lasts about 3 weeks. If successful cross-pollination occurs, a flower will be replaced by a spindle-shaped follicle about 5" long and 1" across at its widest. The surface of a follicle is smooth, but usually slightly pubescent. This splits open along one side, and releases numerous seeds, each one with a large tuft of white hair. Seed distribution is by wind. The root system consists of a central taproot. This plant occurs as widely scattered individuals, and rarely forms colonies.
Cultivation: The preference is full sun and rather dry conditions. This plant will also tolerate partial sun and mesic conditions. If anything, poor sterile soil is preferred, containing gravelly or sandy material, as this reduces competition from taller, more aggressive plants. However, it will also grow quite well in rich loam. After it blooms and forms seedpods, this plant steadily deteriorates.
Range & Habitat: Short Green Milkweed is widely distributed in Illinois, but is absent from some eastern and central counties. In areas where it occurs, Short Green Milkweed is an occasional plant. Habitats include openings in upland forests that are rocky or sandy; mesic to dry black soil prairies, sand prairies, gravel prairies, and hill prairies; barrens, limestone glades, and sand dunes; and abandoned fields. This species of milkweed usually occurs in high quality habitats, rather than disturbed areas. It is easy to overlook, even when it is in bloom.
Faunal Associations: The nectar of the flowers attracts bumblebees and other long-tongued bees, which are the principle pollinators. Ants are also attracted to the nectar, but they are not effective pollinators. The foliage and other parts of the plant are consumed by the larvae of Danaus plexippes (Monarch Butterfly) and the usual assortment of milkweed insects (see Insect Table). Mammalian herbivores shun this plant because the white latex of the leaves is toxic and provides the foliage with a bitter taste. The white latex also clogs up the mouthparts of insects, reducing the number of species that can feed on this plant.
Comments: This non-showy plant is unlikely to receive favor from the mass market in horticulture, but it is nonetheless quite interesting to examine. This milkweed species is rather variable across different localities; there is a variety with narrow leaves that occurs in sandy areas near Lake Michigan. Short Green Milkweed can be distinguished from most other species of milkweeds by its nodding umbels of green flowers. The rare Asclepias meadii (Mead's Milkweed) has this characteristic, but its flowers are noticeably larger in size, and the hoods of its flowers have horns. Another milkweed species, Asclepias hirtella (Tall Green Milkweed) produces nodding umbels of flowers, but they are usually more white than green in appearance, and its leaves are more linear and narrow than the leaves of Short Green Milkweed.
Information from state of Illinois.
Short Green Milkweed
Asclepias viridiflora
Milkweed family (Asclepiadaceae)
Description: This native perennial plant is 1½–2' tall and unbranched. The central stem is light green and usually slightly pubescent, otherwise it is glabrous. The leaves are usually opposite and angle strongly upward from the stem, otherwise they are alternate. They are up to 5" long and 1¾" across, and are usually lanceolate with short petioles. Because this is a variable species, the leaves can assume other forms as well. A typical leaf has a prominent central vein and smooth margins that gently undulate up and down. It is often slightly pubescent, otherwise glabrous. A single umbel of flowers may appear from the axils of the upper pairs of leaves. A typical plant will have 1-3 umbels, with each umbel consisting of 15-30 flowers. Each umbel has a short stalk and hangs downward. Each flower is about 1/3" long, consisting of 5 upper hoods and 5 deflexed petals. The hoods are without horns, and the central reproductive column is very short or absent. Instead, there are masses of winged pollinia. The flowers are light green to green, becoming yellowish green or purplish green as they age. Their pedicels are about ½" long and hairy. The blooming period occurs during early summer and lasts about 3 weeks. If successful cross-pollination occurs, a flower will be replaced by a spindle-shaped follicle about 5" long and 1" across at its widest. The surface of a follicle is smooth, but usually slightly pubescent. This splits open along one side, and releases numerous seeds, each one with a large tuft of white hair. Seed distribution is by wind. The root system consists of a central taproot. This plant occurs as widely scattered individuals, and rarely forms colonies.
Cultivation: The preference is full sun and rather dry conditions. This plant will also tolerate partial sun and mesic conditions. If anything, poor sterile soil is preferred, containing gravelly or sandy material, as this reduces competition from taller, more aggressive plants. However, it will also grow quite well in rich loam. After it blooms and forms seedpods, this plant steadily deteriorates.
Range & Habitat: Short Green Milkweed is widely distributed in Illinois, but is absent from some eastern and central counties. In areas where it occurs, Short Green Milkweed is an occasional plant. Habitats include openings in upland forests that are rocky or sandy; mesic to dry black soil prairies, sand prairies, gravel prairies, and hill prairies; barrens, limestone glades, and sand dunes; and abandoned fields. This species of milkweed usually occurs in high quality habitats, rather than disturbed areas. It is easy to overlook, even when it is in bloom.
Faunal Associations: The nectar of the flowers attracts bumblebees and other long-tongued bees, which are the principle pollinators. Ants are also attracted to the nectar, but they are not effective pollinators. The foliage and other parts of the plant are consumed by the larvae of Danaus plexippes (Monarch Butterfly) and the usual assortment of milkweed insects (see Insect Table). Mammalian herbivores shun this plant because the white latex of the leaves is toxic and provides the foliage with a bitter taste. The white latex also clogs up the mouthparts of insects, reducing the number of species that can feed on this plant.
Comments: This non-showy plant is unlikely to receive favor from the mass market in horticulture, but it is nonetheless quite interesting to examine. This milkweed species is rather variable across different localities; there is a variety with narrow leaves that occurs in sandy areas near Lake Michigan. Short Green Milkweed can be distinguished from most other species of milkweeds by its nodding umbels of green flowers. The rare Asclepias meadii (Mead's Milkweed) has this characteristic, but its flowers are noticeably larger in size, and the hoods of its flowers have horns. Another milkweed species, Asclepias hirtella (Tall Green Milkweed) produces nodding umbels of flowers, but they are usually more white than green in appearance, and its leaves are more linear and narrow than the leaves of Short Green Milkweed.
Information from state of Illinois.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Green Faith Alliance of Central Arkansas to meet by telephone with like-minded or curious Northwest Arkansas residents at UA business school
The Green Faith Alliance of Central Arkansas will meet with us by
telephone on Monday, August 3, at 5:30 pm. Our meeting will be held in
Willard J. Walker Hall, room 546 (fifth floor) on the Business School Campus area at the
University. Attached are directions (from I-540) to the Harmon
parking garage, which is directly across from Walker Hall. The cost
to park there is about $3 for an hour.
As you may recall from my previous email, we talked briefly about the
possibility of having a Green Faith Alliance of Arkansas (dropping the
word “central”) instead of forming a second group called Green Faith
Alliance of Northwest Arkansas. This way, there would be one group,
instead of two, and we might accomplish more by working together than
we can separately.
I am currently on vacation in Georgia. Vivian Hill from St. Paul’s
will be your host for this meeting.
Please RSVP accept or regret to Vivian at vhill@walton.uark.edu as
soon as you can.
We hope that you will be able to join us for this meeting. Again, the
details are:
· Monday, August 3rd
5:30 pm
Willard J Walker Hall, Room 546, U of A Campus
Many thanks to you and thanks for your ministry for the planet that we share.
Michele Halsell
telephone on Monday, August 3, at 5:30 pm. Our meeting will be held in
Willard J. Walker Hall, room 546 (fifth floor) on the Business School Campus area at the
University. Attached are directions (from I-540) to the Harmon
parking garage, which is directly across from Walker Hall. The cost
to park there is about $3 for an hour.
As you may recall from my previous email, we talked briefly about the
possibility of having a Green Faith Alliance of Arkansas (dropping the
word “central”) instead of forming a second group called Green Faith
Alliance of Northwest Arkansas. This way, there would be one group,
instead of two, and we might accomplish more by working together than
we can separately.
I am currently on vacation in Georgia. Vivian Hill from St. Paul’s
will be your host for this meeting.
Please RSVP accept or regret to Vivian at vhill@walton.uark.edu as
soon as you can.
We hope that you will be able to join us for this meeting. Again, the
details are:
· Monday, August 3rd
5:30 pm
Willard J Walker Hall, Room 546, U of A Campus
Many thanks to you and thanks for your ministry for the planet that we share.
Michele Halsell
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Carbon Caps Task Force meeting at 1:30 p.m. today at the OMNI Center office downstairs at 902 W. Maple
Sunday August 2
1:30 pm
Carbon Caps Task Force
Re-Organizing Meeting
OMNI office
United Campus Ministries 902 W. Maple (Maple Street & Storer Avenue)
Several interesting options for action are emerging. Come find out how you can plug in, because you are needed. And meet OMNI's new environmental organizer, Ryan Bancroft. And Robert McAfee will bring lemon cake. You don't want to miss this meeting.
Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com
1:30 pm
Carbon Caps Task Force
Re-Organizing Meeting
OMNI office
United Campus Ministries 902 W. Maple (Maple Street & Storer Avenue)
Several interesting options for action are emerging. Come find out how you can plug in, because you are needed. And meet OMNI's new environmental organizer, Ryan Bancroft. And Robert McAfee will bring lemon cake. You don't want to miss this meeting.
Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Joe Neal's presentation draws record crowd to Nightbird Books' lecture venue
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of some of the people who attended Joe Neal's birding lecture and signing of his newly published book on the birds of northwest arkansas.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
America's Wildlife Heritage Act needs support of outdoor-sport enthusiasts NOW
Speak up for America's Wildlife Heritage Act
From: Julia Marden, National Wildlife Federation (alerts@nwf.org)
Sent: Tue 7/28/09 12:37 PM
Dear Aubrey,
We shouldn't make the mule deer wait.
The mule deer (whose large ears can actually wiggle independently of each other), is iconic to the Rocky Mountain West. And unfortunately, it is facing threats of global warming and habitat loss much like every other wildlife species.
But ironically--despite the threats they face--mule deer populations are still too strong to be monitored and protected like endangered species are.
Ask your representative to support a law that safeguards wildlife species and their habitats before they become critically endangered.
Right now, Congress is considering legislation called America's Wildlife Heritage Act. This bill will help federal land management agencies safeguard species like the mule deer and require scientific objectives and monitoring to make sure wildlife populations remain at healthy levels.
Current federal law doesn't do much to protect America's wildlife, until it's almost too late. Instead, oil, gas and other interests have received priority on public lands over wildlife and the health of their habitats.
Here's a big chance to put wildlife conservation back on the agenda.
Just one bill could make all the difference.
Encourage your representative to be a leader in wildlife conservation by supporting America's Wildlife Heritage Act today.
Sincerely,
Julia Marden
Online Grassroots Coordinator
National Wildlife Federation
alerts@nwf.org
From: Julia Marden, National Wildlife Federation (alerts@nwf.org)
Sent: Tue 7/28/09 12:37 PM
Dear Aubrey,
We shouldn't make the mule deer wait.
The mule deer (whose large ears can actually wiggle independently of each other), is iconic to the Rocky Mountain West. And unfortunately, it is facing threats of global warming and habitat loss much like every other wildlife species.
But ironically--despite the threats they face--mule deer populations are still too strong to be monitored and protected like endangered species are.
Ask your representative to support a law that safeguards wildlife species and their habitats before they become critically endangered.
Right now, Congress is considering legislation called America's Wildlife Heritage Act. This bill will help federal land management agencies safeguard species like the mule deer and require scientific objectives and monitoring to make sure wildlife populations remain at healthy levels.
Current federal law doesn't do much to protect America's wildlife, until it's almost too late. Instead, oil, gas and other interests have received priority on public lands over wildlife and the health of their habitats.
Here's a big chance to put wildlife conservation back on the agenda.
Just one bill could make all the difference.
Encourage your representative to be a leader in wildlife conservation by supporting America's Wildlife Heritage Act today.
Sincerely,
Julia Marden
Online Grassroots Coordinator
National Wildlife Federation
alerts@nwf.org
Friday, July 24, 2009
Cattail sunset over Pinnacle Prairie west of World Peace Wetland Prairie
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of cattails and other wetland plants on Pinnacle Prairie at sunset on July 15, 2009.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A faithful response to global warming
RE: National Council of Churches Renewable Energy Meeting - A Faithful Response to Global Warming
From: Gladys tiffany (gladystiffany@yahoo.com)
Sent: Thu 7/23/09 10:40 AM
To: Aubrey Shepherd (aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com)
It's at St. Thomas Episcopal in Springdale beginning at 2:00. Here's the agenda:
A Faithful Response to Global Warming:
A National Energy Policy Based upon the Values of Justice and Sustainability
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Springdale, AR
Thursday, July 23, 2009
2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
AGENDA
2:00 pm to 2:10 pm - Welcome - Ellen McNulty
2:10 pm to 2:45 pm - Defining the Problem – Robert McAfee, Repower Arkansas
2:45 pm to 3:05 pm – Energy Efficiency Legislation – Eddy Moore, Arkansas Aububon
3:05 pm to 3:25 pm - Developing A Community Wind Farm– Nathan Wilson and Benton Anderson, Winds of Change
3:25 pm to 3:30 pm - Break
3:30 pm to 3:55 pm - St. Thomas Wind Turbines – Stephan Pollard, Arkansas Alternative Energy Commissioner and Trem Well Energy LLC
3:55 pm to 4:10 pm - U of A Applied Sustainability Center – Michele Halsell
4:10 pm to 4:25 pm - Interfaith Power and Light: Starting a State Affiliate Chapter, Scharmel Roussel, Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church
4:25 pm to 4:40 pm- A Theological Response to Sustainable Energy – Rev. Pamela Morgan
4:40 pm to 5:00 pm - Wrap Up Session
Taking Action – Ellen McNulty and Linda Sherman
Closing Prayer – Reverend Pamela Morgan
Sponsors:
National Council of Churches,
St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Repower Arkansas
Arkansas Climate Campaign Coalition
Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com
From: Gladys tiffany (gladystiffany@yahoo.com)
Sent: Thu 7/23/09 10:40 AM
To: Aubrey Shepherd (aubreyshepherd@hotmail.com)
It's at St. Thomas Episcopal in Springdale beginning at 2:00. Here's the agenda:
A Faithful Response to Global Warming:
A National Energy Policy Based upon the Values of Justice and Sustainability
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Springdale, AR
Thursday, July 23, 2009
2:00 PM to 5:00 PM
AGENDA
2:00 pm to 2:10 pm - Welcome - Ellen McNulty
2:10 pm to 2:45 pm - Defining the Problem – Robert McAfee, Repower Arkansas
2:45 pm to 3:05 pm – Energy Efficiency Legislation – Eddy Moore, Arkansas Aububon
3:05 pm to 3:25 pm - Developing A Community Wind Farm– Nathan Wilson and Benton Anderson, Winds of Change
3:25 pm to 3:30 pm - Break
3:30 pm to 3:55 pm - St. Thomas Wind Turbines – Stephan Pollard, Arkansas Alternative Energy Commissioner and Trem Well Energy LLC
3:55 pm to 4:10 pm - U of A Applied Sustainability Center – Michele Halsell
4:10 pm to 4:25 pm - Interfaith Power and Light: Starting a State Affiliate Chapter, Scharmel Roussel, Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church
4:25 pm to 4:40 pm- A Theological Response to Sustainable Energy – Rev. Pamela Morgan
4:40 pm to 5:00 pm - Wrap Up Session
Taking Action – Ellen McNulty and Linda Sherman
Closing Prayer – Reverend Pamela Morgan
Sponsors:
National Council of Churches,
St. Thomas Episcopal Church,
Repower Arkansas
Arkansas Climate Campaign Coalition
Gladys Tiffany
www.omnicenter.org
Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
479-973-9049 -- gladystiffany@yahoo.com
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Fayetteville food drive and Washington County "stop the quarry" efforts touted on square on Saturday July 18, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of details. The finger points to the area where the red-dirt pit that owners want to convert to a limestone mine sits on the edge of Fayetteville. It is up to the Washington County Quorum Court to see that the proposal is not allowed. Residents of Fayetteville and the rest of Washington County must let their justices of the peace know their feelings about this project or it could become an even uglier disaster than shown on the poster. And the limestone pit is estimated to take 75 years to deplete!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Land-use and Green Infrastructure committee brings together wise heads on Thursday July 9, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of Fayetteville residents planning efforts of green-infrastructure and land-use committee of the Fayetteville Forward summit on July 9, 2009.
Green-infrastructure and Land-Use Committee to meet at 7 p.m. today in Fayetteville City Hall
THE NEXT MEETING OF THE FAYETTEVILLE FORWARD ECONOMIC ACCOUNTABILITY COUNCIL'S LAND USE PLANNING AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE WILL BE:
THURSDAY---JULY 9-----7 PM-----ROOM 111 ------ CITY HALL
GOAL SETTING: This meeting will briefly review the "What We Have" and "What We Need" of each category and determine short term goals in order to take our information and needs to the next level. Committees have been formed and objectives outlined:
Define and Identify: Land Use Planning and Green Infrastructure
Develop: Policy-- To make Land Use and Green Infrastructure Plan
Describe: Economic Impacts with or without LU & GI Planning
The Committee will review discussion at the June 4 meeting summarized below::
Bob Caulk of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association presented a power point program outlining the organizations work to date including maps of green areas within and surrounding Fayetteville. He also described the group’s ongoing effort to present infrastructure planning into the small towns on Fayetteville’s borders -- Johnson, Greenland, Farmington, and the Lake Wedington area---as well as plans to bring their project to Fayetteville.
Three poster boards were available for recording WHAT WE HAVE and WHAT WE NEED in each of the three categories for attendees to suggest where the community should be putting green infrastructure/land use planning into the working policies of our community and area.
IDENTIFY: LAND USE PLANNING AND GREEN RASTRUCTURE
What We Have---
--Maps/work/contacts generated by Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association
--School grounds, parks, trails, green spaces –private and public
--Botanical Garden of the Ozarks
--“will”
What We Need----
--Geologic map of city
--Inventory of old growth forest remnants
--Outreach to neighborhoods, individuals, businesses, and other communities to explain and garner support for green infrastructure
DEVELOP: POLICIES –TO MAKE LAND USE & GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE A REALITY
What we have----
Stormwater Issues & Actions
--Developing Stormwater Feasability Study—by Council Directive
--Stormwater infrastructure
--Planning Ordinances & Policies
--Field staff for storm water maintenance
--Nutrient Reduction Plan
Trees---Tree Preservation Ordinance and Landscape Manual
Green Teams---in schools
What we need-----
Storm Water--Complete Storm Water Feasibility Study
--Develop way to move forward—
--Identify ordinances, structure, philosophy, changes
Trees & Habitat
--Conduct Ecological analysis to see if Tree Ordinance working
--Establish a Wildlife Habitat Preservation Ordinance as part of Green Infrastructure
--Conduct a UFORE study to establish data on what trees contribute from an economic point of view
--Encourage use of native plant species
Other----
--Establish a Riparian Zone Ordinance
--Improve/strengthen the Hillside Ordinance
--Transfer Development Rights---get state enabling legislation passed
--Underground Utility policy for public construction projects
--Habitat or conservation zoning
--Education about structural designs that support roof gardens, etc.
--Bees throughout city –attention to insects and pollination needs they provide as well as the ecological system links between insects and bird and bat populations
--Educate children and adults
ECONOMICS ---IMPACTS OF LAND USE PLANNING & GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
What we have----
--Websites & Links
* Robert Costanza/ Gund Institute Website: http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=about/Robert_Costanza.html&SM=about/about_menu.html
“The Gund Institute for Ecological Economics (GIEE) is an environmental institute housed at The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Its primary mission is the study of the relationships between ecological and economic systems through the collaborative work of experts, educators, students, and others from around the world and across a wide variety of academic and environmental disciplines related to ecological economics."
:
THURSDAY---JULY 9-----7 PM-----ROOM 111 ------ CITY HALL
GOAL SETTING: This meeting will briefly review the "What We Have" and "What We Need" of each category and determine short term goals in order to take our information and needs to the next level. Committees have been formed and objectives outlined:
Define and Identify: Land Use Planning and Green Infrastructure
Develop: Policy-- To make Land Use and Green Infrastructure Plan
Describe: Economic Impacts with or without LU & GI Planning
The Committee will review discussion at the June 4 meeting summarized below::
Bob Caulk of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association presented a power point program outlining the organizations work to date including maps of green areas within and surrounding Fayetteville. He also described the group’s ongoing effort to present infrastructure planning into the small towns on Fayetteville’s borders -- Johnson, Greenland, Farmington, and the Lake Wedington area---as well as plans to bring their project to Fayetteville.
Three poster boards were available for recording WHAT WE HAVE and WHAT WE NEED in each of the three categories for attendees to suggest where the community should be putting green infrastructure/land use planning into the working policies of our community and area.
IDENTIFY: LAND USE PLANNING AND GREEN RASTRUCTURE
What We Have---
--Maps/work/contacts generated by Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association
--School grounds, parks, trails, green spaces –private and public
--Botanical Garden of the Ozarks
--“will”
What We Need----
--Geologic map of city
--Inventory of old growth forest remnants
--Outreach to neighborhoods, individuals, businesses, and other communities to explain and garner support for green infrastructure
DEVELOP: POLICIES –TO MAKE LAND USE & GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE A REALITY
What we have----
Stormwater Issues & Actions
--Developing Stormwater Feasability Study—by Council Directive
--Stormwater infrastructure
--Planning Ordinances & Policies
--Field staff for storm water maintenance
--Nutrient Reduction Plan
Trees---Tree Preservation Ordinance and Landscape Manual
Green Teams---in schools
What we need-----
Storm Water--Complete Storm Water Feasibility Study
--Develop way to move forward—
--Identify ordinances, structure, philosophy, changes
Trees & Habitat
--Conduct Ecological analysis to see if Tree Ordinance working
--Establish a Wildlife Habitat Preservation Ordinance as part of Green Infrastructure
--Conduct a UFORE study to establish data on what trees contribute from an economic point of view
--Encourage use of native plant species
Other----
--Establish a Riparian Zone Ordinance
--Improve/strengthen the Hillside Ordinance
--Transfer Development Rights---get state enabling legislation passed
--Underground Utility policy for public construction projects
--Habitat or conservation zoning
--Education about structural designs that support roof gardens, etc.
--Bees throughout city –attention to insects and pollination needs they provide as well as the ecological system links between insects and bird and bat populations
--Educate children and adults
ECONOMICS ---IMPACTS OF LAND USE PLANNING & GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
What we have----
--Websites & Links
* Robert Costanza/ Gund Institute Website: http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=about/Robert_Costanza.html&SM=about/about_menu.html
“The Gund Institute for Ecological Economics (GIEE) is an environmental institute housed at The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Its primary mission is the study of the relationships between ecological and economic systems through the collaborative work of experts, educators, students, and others from around the world and across a wide variety of academic and environmental disciplines related to ecological economics."
:
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Joe Neal's new book now for sale
Please click on images to ENLARGE
Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society has published a new book, BIRDS in northwestern Arkansas, an ecological perspective. This venture is part of the ongoing re-launch of NWAAS. It narrates and summarizes a mass of
bird data from 9 counties in the NW corner of the state -- Breeding Bird Surveys, Christmas Bird Counts, records in Arkansas Audubon Society bird records database by many observers, Forest Service landbird point counts, field research by graduate students, etc. The book is $12.95 and is available at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville (205 W. Dickson). It is also available by mail by contacting our immediate past president, Joan Reynolds (joanreynolds@gmail.com)-- cost, 12.95 plus 3.00 postage. The book will also be available while they last (small press run) at society
functions, including the upcoming July 12 field trip to Chesney Prairie Natural Area -- bring the correct amount (if by check, make it out to NWAAS). Finally, if we sell 5 or more copies in one transaction, the price is $10 each (so get together & save more; this price would not include
postage, if the books are to be mailed). This is a not-for-profit venture. Hopefully, this will widen understanding of bird occurrences in this part of Arkansas and stimulate more birding!
Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society has published a new book, BIRDS in northwestern Arkansas, an ecological perspective. This venture is part of the ongoing re-launch of NWAAS. It narrates and summarizes a mass of
bird data from 9 counties in the NW corner of the state -- Breeding Bird Surveys, Christmas Bird Counts, records in Arkansas Audubon Society bird records database by many observers, Forest Service landbird point counts, field research by graduate students, etc. The book is $12.95 and is available at Nightbird Books in Fayetteville (205 W. Dickson). It is also available by mail by contacting our immediate past president, Joan Reynolds (joanreynolds@gmail.com)-- cost, 12.95 plus 3.00 postage. The book will also be available while they last (small press run) at society
functions, including the upcoming July 12 field trip to Chesney Prairie Natural Area -- bring the correct amount (if by check, make it out to NWAAS). Finally, if we sell 5 or more copies in one transaction, the price is $10 each (so get together & save more; this price would not include
postage, if the books are to be mailed). This is a not-for-profit venture. Hopefully, this will widen understanding of bird occurrences in this part of Arkansas and stimulate more birding!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Honeybee on butterfly milkweed on June 30, 2009
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of honeybee on milkweed on June 30, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Hill Place contractor's machine compacting street base, water added, water carries limestone silt into Town Branch of Beaver Lake Watershed
Please click on image to see where limestone-dust siltation orginates and where it is going.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Butterfly gardens easy to grow in Northwest Arkansas
Butterfly gardens can be grown throughout the
United States. There is a wide variety of both butterfly
attracting (nectar) plants and host (food) plants cover-
ing climates zones throughout the country.
Creating a Garden
Gardens can range in size from containers to sever-
al acres. Butterflies like sunny sites and areas sheltered
from high winds and predators. Warm, sheltered sites
are most needed in the spring and fall. Butterflies are
cold-blooded insects that can only fly well when their
body temperatures are above 70 F. They are often seen
resting on rocks, which reflect the heat of the sun help-
ing to raise their body temperatures, so be sure to
include some rocks in your garden. It’s also beneficial
to have partly shady areas, like trees or shrubs, so they
can hide when it’s cloudy or cool off if it’s very hot.
Plants that attract butterflies are usually classified
as those that are a food source,anectar source or both.
Butterflies require food plants for their larval stages and
nectar plants for the adult stage. Some larvae feed on
specifichost plants, while others will feed on a variety
of plants. If possible, include both larval host plants
and adult nectar plants in your butterfly garden.
Butterflies also like puddles. Males of several
species congregate at small rain pools, forming “puddle
clubs”. Permanent puddles are very easy to make by
buryingabucket to therim, filling it with gravel or
sand, and then pouring in liquids such as stale beer,
sweet drinks or water. Overripe fruit, allowed to sit for
afew days is a very attractive substance to butterflies
as well!
Life Cycle of A Butterfly
Butterflies go through a four-stage developmental
process known as metamorphosis (egg, larva or caterpil-
lar, pupa or chrysalis and adult). Understanding a but-
terfly’s life cycle can make butterfly watching more
enjoyable, andthis knowledge is an important asset to
those who want to understand the principles of attract-
ingbutterflies to their gardens.
Butterflies begin their life as an egg, laid either
singly or in clusters depending on the species. A very
tiny caterpillar emerges and, after consuming its egg
shell, begins feeding on its host plant. Caterpillars must
crawl out of their skin or molt, usually around five times,
before changing into a pupa. Finally, an adult butterfly
emerges, spreads its wings and flies away.
Butterflies typically lay their eggs in late spring and
hatch 3 to 6 days after they are laid. It takes 3 to 4
weeks for a caterpillar to pupate and 9 to 14 days to
emerge as an adult.
Host Plants
Adult female butterflies spend time searching for
food plants required by the immature caterpillar stage.
Most butterflies have specific host plants on which they
develop. For example, caterpillars of the monarch but-
terfly develop only on milkweed, while the black swal-
lowtail feeds only on parsley, dill and closely related
plants. Planting an adequate supply of the proper host
plants gives butterflies a place to lay their eggs, which
will successfully hatch and result in butterflies that will
continue to visit thegarden. Providing the necessary
food plants for the developing caterpillars also allows
production of a “native” population that can be
observed in all stages ofdevelopment.
To enjoy adult butterflies, you have to be willing to
allow their caterpillars to feed on foliage in your garden.
Food source plants that support caterpillars include the
annual marigold, snapdragon and violet; the perennial
butterfly milkweed, daisy and various herbs; the ash,
birch, cherry, dogwood, poplar and willow trees; lilac
shrubs; juniper evergreens and more.
The weediness of some host plants makes them less
than desirable for a space within your more attractive
garden beds, but they serve the same function if you
place them away in a corner of the yard. To keep them
from becoming invasive, remember to remove their
spentblooms before they go to seed.
Plants to Attract Butterflies
To attract the most butterflies, design a garden
that provides a long season of flowers (nectar plants).
The time of flowering, duration of bloom, flower color
and plant size are all important considerations when
selecting plants to attract butterflies. A wide variety of
food plants will give the greatest diversity of visitors.
Choose a mixture of annuals and perennials.
Annuals bloom all summer but must be replanted every
spring (after the last frost). Perennials bloom year after
year from the same roots but their blooming periods are
typically limited to a few weeks or months. To ensure
the availability of nectar sources throughout the sum-
mer, long-blooming annuals should be planted between
the perennials.
Try staggering wild and cultivated plants, as well as
blooming times of the day and year. Planting in mass
(several plants of the same kind) will usually attract
more butterflies, as there is more nectar available to
them at a single stop. Plants with clusters of flowers
are often better than plants with small, single flowers
because it is easier for butterflies to landon clustered
and/or larger flowers.
Many plants which attract butterflies, especially
trees and shrubs, may already be present in a specific
area. Shrubs include azalea, spirea, butterfly bush and
lilacs. Although weeds andsomenative plants are gen-
erally not welcomein a garden, allowingthem to grow
under supervision may be an option, as these plants
help attract butterflies. Try to avoid plants that readily
reseed and may take over and dominate garden sites.
Perennials, such as chives, dianthus, beebalm, but-
terfly weed, mints, black-eyed susan and purple cone-
flower offer a succession of blooms, other perennials
include coreopsis, lavender, phlox, sedum and yarrow.
Add annuals that flower all season, such as cosmos, lan-
tana, pentas,petunias, phlox, salvia and zinnias. Select
flowers with manysmall tubular flowers or florets like
liatris, goldenrod and verbena. Or chose those with sin-
gle flowers, such as marigold, daisy and sunflower.
Butterflies are attracted to flowers with strong
scents and bright colors, where they drink sweet energy-
rich nectar. Planting a variety of nectar sources will
encourage more butterflies to visit the garden.
For better butterfly viewing, plant the tallest
plants in the rear of the garden and work smaller or
shorter towardthefront.
Butterfly
Gardens
Creating, Growing and Enjoying
EARLMAYSEED&NURSERY
www.earlmay.com
SHENANDOAH, IOWA51603
Butterfly Host Plants(continued)
Trees Herbs
Ash Dill
Birch Parsley
Cherry Sweet Fennel
Dogwood
Linden
Poplar
Willow
Butterfly Attracting Plants
Annuals Perennials
Ageratum Aster
Cosmos Beebalm
Gomphrena Blanket Flower
Heliotrope Butterfly Milkweed
Lantana Coreopsis
Marigold Daisy
Nasturtium Dame’s Rocket
Nicotiana Daylily
Pentas Dianthus
Petunia Liatris
Phlox Phlox
Salvia Purple Coneflower
Snapdragon Rudbeckia
Statice Russian Sage
Sunflower Salvia
Sweet Alyssum Scabiosa
Verbena Sedum
Zinnia Veronica
Yarrow
Shrubs Herbs
Azalea Catnip
Butterfly Bush Chives
Lilacs Lavender
Mock Orange Mint
Potentilla
Viburnun
Cut Back on Insecticides
It’s difficult to have a successful butterfly garden
inalocation where insecticides are used. Pesticides,
specifically insecticides, kill not only the insects you
want to get rid of – they also kill the insects you want
tokeep, such as monarch caterpillars. Even biological
controls such as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) will kill but-
terfly larvae. When treating for insect pests, always
consider non-chemical methods of pest control before
turning to pesticides.
Let Your Garden Grow
Most butterfly species over-winter nearby. This
means that their eggs, chrysalises, or larvae are likely to
be in or near your yard during the non-gardening
months. Some will even hibernate as adults. Do not
mow weed sites, cut down dead plants or dismantle
woodpiles which provide them safe shelter in the off-
season until the weather warms up.
Enjoying Your Butterfly Garden
Butterfly gardens are a great source of enjoyment
for everyone. Visiting butterflies include a variety of
different species and names, depending upon the region
of the country in which you live. To learn more about
which plants help in attracting butterflies get your copy
of National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds,
Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife by David
Mizejewski or the Earl May Perennial Guideavailable at
your local Earl May Nursery & Garden Center.
Butterfly Host Plants
Annuals Perennials
Marigold Butterfly Milkweed
Snapdragon Daisy
Violet
Shrubs Evergreens
Lilacs Juniper
IBM# 912600 750 4/08
Copyright Earl May Seed & Nursery L.C. ©
United States. There is a wide variety of both butterfly
attracting (nectar) plants and host (food) plants cover-
ing climates zones throughout the country.
Creating a Garden
Gardens can range in size from containers to sever-
al acres. Butterflies like sunny sites and areas sheltered
from high winds and predators. Warm, sheltered sites
are most needed in the spring and fall. Butterflies are
cold-blooded insects that can only fly well when their
body temperatures are above 70 F. They are often seen
resting on rocks, which reflect the heat of the sun help-
ing to raise their body temperatures, so be sure to
include some rocks in your garden. It’s also beneficial
to have partly shady areas, like trees or shrubs, so they
can hide when it’s cloudy or cool off if it’s very hot.
Plants that attract butterflies are usually classified
as those that are a food source,anectar source or both.
Butterflies require food plants for their larval stages and
nectar plants for the adult stage. Some larvae feed on
specifichost plants, while others will feed on a variety
of plants. If possible, include both larval host plants
and adult nectar plants in your butterfly garden.
Butterflies also like puddles. Males of several
species congregate at small rain pools, forming “puddle
clubs”. Permanent puddles are very easy to make by
buryingabucket to therim, filling it with gravel or
sand, and then pouring in liquids such as stale beer,
sweet drinks or water. Overripe fruit, allowed to sit for
afew days is a very attractive substance to butterflies
as well!
Life Cycle of A Butterfly
Butterflies go through a four-stage developmental
process known as metamorphosis (egg, larva or caterpil-
lar, pupa or chrysalis and adult). Understanding a but-
terfly’s life cycle can make butterfly watching more
enjoyable, andthis knowledge is an important asset to
those who want to understand the principles of attract-
ingbutterflies to their gardens.
Butterflies begin their life as an egg, laid either
singly or in clusters depending on the species. A very
tiny caterpillar emerges and, after consuming its egg
shell, begins feeding on its host plant. Caterpillars must
crawl out of their skin or molt, usually around five times,
before changing into a pupa. Finally, an adult butterfly
emerges, spreads its wings and flies away.
Butterflies typically lay their eggs in late spring and
hatch 3 to 6 days after they are laid. It takes 3 to 4
weeks for a caterpillar to pupate and 9 to 14 days to
emerge as an adult.
Host Plants
Adult female butterflies spend time searching for
food plants required by the immature caterpillar stage.
Most butterflies have specific host plants on which they
develop. For example, caterpillars of the monarch but-
terfly develop only on milkweed, while the black swal-
lowtail feeds only on parsley, dill and closely related
plants. Planting an adequate supply of the proper host
plants gives butterflies a place to lay their eggs, which
will successfully hatch and result in butterflies that will
continue to visit thegarden. Providing the necessary
food plants for the developing caterpillars also allows
production of a “native” population that can be
observed in all stages ofdevelopment.
To enjoy adult butterflies, you have to be willing to
allow their caterpillars to feed on foliage in your garden.
Food source plants that support caterpillars include the
annual marigold, snapdragon and violet; the perennial
butterfly milkweed, daisy and various herbs; the ash,
birch, cherry, dogwood, poplar and willow trees; lilac
shrubs; juniper evergreens and more.
The weediness of some host plants makes them less
than desirable for a space within your more attractive
garden beds, but they serve the same function if you
place them away in a corner of the yard. To keep them
from becoming invasive, remember to remove their
spentblooms before they go to seed.
Plants to Attract Butterflies
To attract the most butterflies, design a garden
that provides a long season of flowers (nectar plants).
The time of flowering, duration of bloom, flower color
and plant size are all important considerations when
selecting plants to attract butterflies. A wide variety of
food plants will give the greatest diversity of visitors.
Choose a mixture of annuals and perennials.
Annuals bloom all summer but must be replanted every
spring (after the last frost). Perennials bloom year after
year from the same roots but their blooming periods are
typically limited to a few weeks or months. To ensure
the availability of nectar sources throughout the sum-
mer, long-blooming annuals should be planted between
the perennials.
Try staggering wild and cultivated plants, as well as
blooming times of the day and year. Planting in mass
(several plants of the same kind) will usually attract
more butterflies, as there is more nectar available to
them at a single stop. Plants with clusters of flowers
are often better than plants with small, single flowers
because it is easier for butterflies to landon clustered
and/or larger flowers.
Many plants which attract butterflies, especially
trees and shrubs, may already be present in a specific
area. Shrubs include azalea, spirea, butterfly bush and
lilacs. Although weeds andsomenative plants are gen-
erally not welcomein a garden, allowingthem to grow
under supervision may be an option, as these plants
help attract butterflies. Try to avoid plants that readily
reseed and may take over and dominate garden sites.
Perennials, such as chives, dianthus, beebalm, but-
terfly weed, mints, black-eyed susan and purple cone-
flower offer a succession of blooms, other perennials
include coreopsis, lavender, phlox, sedum and yarrow.
Add annuals that flower all season, such as cosmos, lan-
tana, pentas,petunias, phlox, salvia and zinnias. Select
flowers with manysmall tubular flowers or florets like
liatris, goldenrod and verbena. Or chose those with sin-
gle flowers, such as marigold, daisy and sunflower.
Butterflies are attracted to flowers with strong
scents and bright colors, where they drink sweet energy-
rich nectar. Planting a variety of nectar sources will
encourage more butterflies to visit the garden.
For better butterfly viewing, plant the tallest
plants in the rear of the garden and work smaller or
shorter towardthefront.
Butterfly
Gardens
Creating, Growing and Enjoying
EARLMAYSEED&NURSERY
www.earlmay.com
SHENANDOAH, IOWA51603
Butterfly Host Plants(continued)
Trees Herbs
Ash Dill
Birch Parsley
Cherry Sweet Fennel
Dogwood
Linden
Poplar
Willow
Butterfly Attracting Plants
Annuals Perennials
Ageratum Aster
Cosmos Beebalm
Gomphrena Blanket Flower
Heliotrope Butterfly Milkweed
Lantana Coreopsis
Marigold Daisy
Nasturtium Dame’s Rocket
Nicotiana Daylily
Pentas Dianthus
Petunia Liatris
Phlox Phlox
Salvia Purple Coneflower
Snapdragon Rudbeckia
Statice Russian Sage
Sunflower Salvia
Sweet Alyssum Scabiosa
Verbena Sedum
Zinnia Veronica
Yarrow
Shrubs Herbs
Azalea Catnip
Butterfly Bush Chives
Lilacs Lavender
Mock Orange Mint
Potentilla
Viburnun
Cut Back on Insecticides
It’s difficult to have a successful butterfly garden
inalocation where insecticides are used. Pesticides,
specifically insecticides, kill not only the insects you
want to get rid of – they also kill the insects you want
tokeep, such as monarch caterpillars. Even biological
controls such as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) will kill but-
terfly larvae. When treating for insect pests, always
consider non-chemical methods of pest control before
turning to pesticides.
Let Your Garden Grow
Most butterfly species over-winter nearby. This
means that their eggs, chrysalises, or larvae are likely to
be in or near your yard during the non-gardening
months. Some will even hibernate as adults. Do not
mow weed sites, cut down dead plants or dismantle
woodpiles which provide them safe shelter in the off-
season until the weather warms up.
Enjoying Your Butterfly Garden
Butterfly gardens are a great source of enjoyment
for everyone. Visiting butterflies include a variety of
different species and names, depending upon the region
of the country in which you live. To learn more about
which plants help in attracting butterflies get your copy
of National Wildlife Federation Attracting Birds,
Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife by David
Mizejewski or the Earl May Perennial Guideavailable at
your local Earl May Nursery & Garden Center.
Butterfly Host Plants
Annuals Perennials
Marigold Butterfly Milkweed
Snapdragon Daisy
Violet
Shrubs Evergreens
Lilacs Juniper
IBM# 912600 750 4/08
Copyright Earl May Seed & Nursery L.C. ©
Friday, June 19, 2009
Arkansas Highway Department scrapes soil out of swale and hauls it to a dump
Please click on start button to view video of AHTD machine scraping topsoil, grass and wildflower from vegetated swale and loading it all into a truck to haul away and dump.
The district highway engineer in Fort Smith office says practice of scraping out "ditches" pleases landowners. He believes it also helps protect base of roadway, even though it actually speeds runoff and encourages erosion.
I wonder what the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's stream team would advise if consulted?
Sometimes it seems that information about how best to manage streams and the ditches that replace streams in so many places is everywhere.
But the people with the big tonka toys never seem to get it. The water that enters this ditch flows to the Cato Springs Branch of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River before entering Beaver Lake, the region's primary source of drinking water. It enters Fayetteville through the Fayette Junction neighborhood and joins the west arm of the Town Branch at Levi Park.
The district highway engineer in Fort Smith office says practice of scraping out "ditches" pleases landowners. He believes it also helps protect base of roadway, even though it actually speeds runoff and encourages erosion.
I wonder what the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's stream team would advise if consulted?
Sometimes it seems that information about how best to manage streams and the ditches that replace streams in so many places is everywhere.
But the people with the big tonka toys never seem to get it. The water that enters this ditch flows to the Cato Springs Branch of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River before entering Beaver Lake, the region's primary source of drinking water. It enters Fayetteville through the Fayette Junction neighborhood and joins the west arm of the Town Branch at Levi Park.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Washington County found innocent. Watershed degradation being done by state highway department
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department machine digging rich, dark well-vegetated soil out of a ditch on the west side of Arkansas 265 south of Fayetteville. An earlier post quoting a commuting motorist's email contained an error. Washington County is not to blame for this misguided work that threatens to increase the silt load of Cato Springs Branch, the lower Town Branch and the West Fork of the White River entering Beaver Lake. The soil being eroded is typical high-quality prairie topsoil that has washed into the ditch but should be back on farm or pasture or natural prairie land. This soil is hauled away and dumped, allowing more to erode away.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Northwest Arkansas Times says neighbors, veterans oppose apartments next to National Cemetery
The Morning News
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/06/16/news/061709fzcouncil.txt
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
New Water Tank Gets Approval; neighbors, veterans disapprove powerfully of sale-barn rezoning next to National Cemetery
By Skip Descant
THE MORNING NEWS
FAYETTEVILLE — It took a week, but a decision among the city and residents has been reached to locate a half-million-gallon water tank on the hilltop neighborhood of Hyland Park.
A 143-foot water tank will be built on a .66-acre secluded site on Lovers Lane. The site is one of the four sites originally explored, but it was generally viewed as too expensive, in terms of land cost and needed infrastructure. This site will add about $220,000 to the cost of the project, said Dave Jurgens, Fayetteville utility director.
However, city officials have negotiated a deal with Hyland Park resident Jim Waselues for him to pay the city $75,000 for the original lot intended for the tank — known as Lot 22. In turn, Gary Combs, owner of the Lovers Lane site will donate his site to the city.
"Although I'm not crazy about spending $200,000 more, I think it shows that the city is willing to be flexible and work with people," said Bobby Ferrell a council member.
"Maybe everyone's not totally satisfied, but this is probably the best solution," said Adella Gray a council member from Ward 1.
The project was opposed by the Hyland Park Homeowner's Association that did not want a water tank in their backyards, saying it will negatively impact views, property value and the general aesthetic nature of the neighborhood.
What did not move forward was any decision regarding rezoning the old Washington County Sale Barn site. The barn intends to hold its last sale June 25, said Steve Bartholemew, one of the sale barn's owners.
A 192-unit student housing apartment development is proposed for the nine-acre site. Some 50 people showed up for the council meeting Tuesday to oppose not only the rezoning, but more largely, the development.
It wasn't just residents from the area petitioning the council to deny the downtown general rezoning, but numerous veterans from across Northwest Arkansas. A national military cemetery — the final resting place for 7,963 deceased veterans — sits adjacent to the site. Veterans would like to expand the cemetery into the sale barn site. However, no deal has been reached say veterans and Bartholemew.
"If we can just stave off this rezoning at this time, it will give us that time," said Jim Buckner, a retired lieutenant colonel and a representative of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
"There are private resources," Buckner added, and who said student housing would be "a terrible neighbor."
"In fact it would only be a beer can throw away from our veterans buried there," he continued.
"There has been no contact with us on a dollar amount," said Bartholomew. "I do know that they have talked, but there has never been a dollar amount."
Wanda Peterson, who's lived in the neighborhood since 1938 and has family buried in the cemetery, was passionate in her plea to stop the rezoning.
"I just can't bear an apartment building shadowing those graves," Peterson told the council.
Others reminded the council the current zoning is light industrial and a number of undesirable land uses could move in without the rezoning.
"The rezoning tonight is a downzoing from industrial to a downtown general," said Dustin Bartholomew, grandson to Billy Joe Bartholomew, co-owner of the Washington County Sale Barn.
"The things that could be built there at this time could be a lot more damaging than what's being proposed," Dustin Bartholomew said.
What Comes Next?
Washington County Sale Barn Rezoning
• The ordinance was left on its first reading.
• It will be considered again at the next council meeting.
For government channel schedule of reruns of the council meeting on City 16 on Cox Cable, please see
http://fayettevillearkgovernmentchannel.blogspot.com
The first rebroadcast of the June 16 city council meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. today and the second is at 7:30 p.m. today.
Rebroadcasts of the June 8 meeting of the Town Branch neighbors with the developers who want the sale barn rezoned for student apartments are set for CAT 18 on cox cable at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 3 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday.
I am uncertain how this affects the short takes normally run at those times. Some weeks, few short takes are recorded. In fact, the one I recorded for those time slots is mostly about the same issue! I apologize to anyone who did a short take and is bumped by this very timely production.
When all equipment is running properly, the shows run on CAT 18 are run simultaneously on the Internet from the CAT Web site for those with access to the Web but no cable television.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/06/16/news/061709fzcouncil.txt
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
New Water Tank Gets Approval; neighbors, veterans disapprove powerfully of sale-barn rezoning next to National Cemetery
By Skip Descant
THE MORNING NEWS
FAYETTEVILLE — It took a week, but a decision among the city and residents has been reached to locate a half-million-gallon water tank on the hilltop neighborhood of Hyland Park.
A 143-foot water tank will be built on a .66-acre secluded site on Lovers Lane. The site is one of the four sites originally explored, but it was generally viewed as too expensive, in terms of land cost and needed infrastructure. This site will add about $220,000 to the cost of the project, said Dave Jurgens, Fayetteville utility director.
However, city officials have negotiated a deal with Hyland Park resident Jim Waselues for him to pay the city $75,000 for the original lot intended for the tank — known as Lot 22. In turn, Gary Combs, owner of the Lovers Lane site will donate his site to the city.
"Although I'm not crazy about spending $200,000 more, I think it shows that the city is willing to be flexible and work with people," said Bobby Ferrell a council member.
"Maybe everyone's not totally satisfied, but this is probably the best solution," said Adella Gray a council member from Ward 1.
The project was opposed by the Hyland Park Homeowner's Association that did not want a water tank in their backyards, saying it will negatively impact views, property value and the general aesthetic nature of the neighborhood.
What did not move forward was any decision regarding rezoning the old Washington County Sale Barn site. The barn intends to hold its last sale June 25, said Steve Bartholemew, one of the sale barn's owners.
A 192-unit student housing apartment development is proposed for the nine-acre site. Some 50 people showed up for the council meeting Tuesday to oppose not only the rezoning, but more largely, the development.
It wasn't just residents from the area petitioning the council to deny the downtown general rezoning, but numerous veterans from across Northwest Arkansas. A national military cemetery — the final resting place for 7,963 deceased veterans — sits adjacent to the site. Veterans would like to expand the cemetery into the sale barn site. However, no deal has been reached say veterans and Bartholemew.
"If we can just stave off this rezoning at this time, it will give us that time," said Jim Buckner, a retired lieutenant colonel and a representative of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
"There are private resources," Buckner added, and who said student housing would be "a terrible neighbor."
"In fact it would only be a beer can throw away from our veterans buried there," he continued.
"There has been no contact with us on a dollar amount," said Bartholomew. "I do know that they have talked, but there has never been a dollar amount."
Wanda Peterson, who's lived in the neighborhood since 1938 and has family buried in the cemetery, was passionate in her plea to stop the rezoning.
"I just can't bear an apartment building shadowing those graves," Peterson told the council.
Others reminded the council the current zoning is light industrial and a number of undesirable land uses could move in without the rezoning.
"The rezoning tonight is a downzoing from industrial to a downtown general," said Dustin Bartholomew, grandson to Billy Joe Bartholomew, co-owner of the Washington County Sale Barn.
"The things that could be built there at this time could be a lot more damaging than what's being proposed," Dustin Bartholomew said.
What Comes Next?
Washington County Sale Barn Rezoning
• The ordinance was left on its first reading.
• It will be considered again at the next council meeting.
For government channel schedule of reruns of the council meeting on City 16 on Cox Cable, please see
http://fayettevillearkgovernmentchannel.blogspot.com
The first rebroadcast of the June 16 city council meeting begins at 1:30 p.m. today and the second is at 7:30 p.m. today.
Rebroadcasts of the June 8 meeting of the Town Branch neighbors with the developers who want the sale barn rezoned for student apartments are set for CAT 18 on cox cable at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 3 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday.
I am uncertain how this affects the short takes normally run at those times. Some weeks, few short takes are recorded. In fact, the one I recorded for those time slots is mostly about the same issue! I apologize to anyone who did a short take and is bumped by this very timely production.
When all equipment is running properly, the shows run on CAT 18 are run simultaneously on the Internet from the CAT Web site for those with access to the Web but no cable television.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Peace-garden tour photos from Saturday June 13, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of Marie Riley's Julia Ward Howe Peace Garden with OMNI sign, great spangled fritillary at Ed Laningham's Glendale Garden and Amanda Bancroft at World Peace Wetland Prairie.
The great spangled fritillary, formally known as Speryeria cybele, was sighted at all six garden sites on Saturday. While the great spangled frit nectars on many species of flower, its caterpillers must have violets as host plants in order to mature.
The great spangled fritillary, formally known as Speryeria cybele, was sighted at all six garden sites on Saturday. While the great spangled frit nectars on many species of flower, its caterpillers must have violets as host plants in order to mature.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Peace-garden tour from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday June 13, 2009
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of OMNI Peace Garden Tour Poster.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Legality of quarry questioned by attorney
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/06/10/news/061009fzwashcoquarry.prt
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Quarry's Legality Questioned
By Dan Craft
The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE — A limestone quarry west of Fayetteville that owners want to expand may never have been legal in the first place, according to an attorney representing upset neighbors.
The Rogers Group seeks county planners' approval to expand their 45-acre quarry into an adjacent 98-acre red dirt pit off Hamestring Road. Neighbors have been opposed to the plan, and Jay Edwards, a lawyer representing some of the surrounding landowners, says even the existing quarry isn't properly permitted.
Rogers Group was blasting and crushing rock, but never had a limestone permit from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality certifying them as a quarry, when Washington County zoned the area agricultural in 2006, Edwards said. The existing quarry should never have been allowed to continue operating under a grandfather clause, let alone be allowed to expand, Edwards said.
The confusion is a result of changing state mining regulations just as the county was implementing zoning regulations in 2006, and all parties agreed the quarry was legal and could continue operations, said Terry Sossong of Rogers Group.
The existing Rogers Group quarry has seven to 10 years worth of material left, Sossong said. The neighboring Stephens Red Dirt Pit has already extracted most of the dirt, leaving behind a mineable seam of limestone, Sossong said.
Traffic, noise, a nearby creek and effects from blasting are all reasons to deny the request for the quarry, neighbors said.
About 30 residents protested outside the quarry last month as members of the Washington County Planning Board toured the facility. The tour was coordinated to occur the same day as a planned explosion to loosen more material from the quarry walls. Neighbors say the explosion was small compared to what they normally experience. Quarry owners characterized the blast a a typical size, using 450 pounds of explosives to shear limestone walls into piles of smaller rocks.
Seismographic readings from four locations surrounding last month's blast, provided by a third party monitoring company hired by Rogers Group, indicate the sound and vibration levels were well below state maximums. Readings from a permanent seismograph on site, also provided by the third-party monitoring company, show none of the blasts since July 2007 have exceeded state standards.
Residents along Hamestring Road have dealt with two red dirt pits and the quarry for more than a decade, and protested earlier this year when Big Red Dirt Farm applied for a conditional use permit to quarry limestone. That permit was denied, appealed, approved, and is now in litigation.
The Rogers Group proposal generated 144 written or e-mailed public comments, all but one opposed to the quarry expansion, said Juliet Richey, county planning director.
Commissioner James Gallagher, who lives less than a mile from the site, abstained from discussion and voting Tuesday night. Gallagher stepped aside to prevent any appearance of a conflict of interest, he said.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/06/10/news/061009fzwashcoquarry.txt
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Quarry's Legality Questioned
By Dan Craft
The Morning News
FAYETTEVILLE — A limestone quarry west of Fayetteville that owners want to expand may never have been legal in the first place, according to an attorney representing upset neighbors.
The Rogers Group seeks county planners' approval to expand their 45-acre quarry into an adjacent 98-acre red dirt pit off Hamestring Road. Neighbors have been opposed to the plan, and Jay Edwards, a lawyer representing some of the surrounding landowners, says even the existing quarry isn't properly permitted.
Rogers Group was blasting and crushing rock, but never had a limestone permit from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality certifying them as a quarry, when Washington County zoned the area agricultural in 2006, Edwards said. The existing quarry should never have been allowed to continue operating under a grandfather clause, let alone be allowed to expand, Edwards said.
The confusion is a result of changing state mining regulations just as the county was implementing zoning regulations in 2006, and all parties agreed the quarry was legal and could continue operations, said Terry Sossong of Rogers Group.
The existing Rogers Group quarry has seven to 10 years worth of material left, Sossong said. The neighboring Stephens Red Dirt Pit has already extracted most of the dirt, leaving behind a mineable seam of limestone, Sossong said.
Traffic, noise, a nearby creek and effects from blasting are all reasons to deny the request for the quarry, neighbors said.
About 30 residents protested outside the quarry last month as members of the Washington County Planning Board toured the facility. The tour was coordinated to occur the same day as a planned explosion to loosen more material from the quarry walls. Neighbors say the explosion was small compared to what they normally experience. Quarry owners characterized the blast a a typical size, using 450 pounds of explosives to shear limestone walls into piles of smaller rocks.
Seismographic readings from four locations surrounding last month's blast, provided by a third party monitoring company hired by Rogers Group, indicate the sound and vibration levels were well below state maximums. Readings from a permanent seismograph on site, also provided by the third-party monitoring company, show none of the blasts since July 2007 have exceeded state standards.
Residents along Hamestring Road have dealt with two red dirt pits and the quarry for more than a decade, and protested earlier this year when Big Red Dirt Farm applied for a conditional use permit to quarry limestone. That permit was denied, appealed, approved, and is now in litigation.
The Rogers Group proposal generated 144 written or e-mailed public comments, all but one opposed to the quarry expansion, said Juliet Richey, county planning director.
Commissioner James Gallagher, who lives less than a mile from the site, abstained from discussion and voting Tuesday night. Gallagher stepped aside to prevent any appearance of a conflict of interest, he said.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/06/10/news/061009fzwashcoquarry.txt
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Illinois River Watershed Partnership's appreciation Day set for Saturday June 6, 2009, at Lake Fayetteville
This Saturday, June 6, in appreciation of our IRWP sponsors, members, volunteer corps and StreamTeam members...
Illinois River Watershed Appreciation Day, Lake Fayetteville Veteran's Memorial Park
2:00 to 4:00 pm
Canoe races --- canoes and life vests provided by Lake Fayetteville Environmental Study Center
Geocaching treasure hunts --- GPS units and treasure hunt guides provided by USGS
Make your own Water-cycle beaded bracelets, enjoy Disney's Nemo and Ariel face paintings by local artists
Recycling bean bag toss, fishing and kid's games courtesy of Washington County Environmental Affairs and Benton County Extension Service
Sand volleyball with UA's Dr. Dirk Philipp!
4:30 to 7:00 pm
Scrumptious barbecue brisket and hot-dogs with the trimmings
Country western concert by local artist Marshall T. Mitchell http://www.marshallmitchell.com/
All Activities, Food, and Music are FREE! Come, bring your family and friends, join us for a beautiful day in the Illinois River Watershed! Park entrance located just east of Lowe's on Zion Road.
IRWP NEWS:
Arkansas Urban Forestry Council names the IRWP as it's Outstanding Organization of the Year "in recognition of the effort, dedication and outstanding contribution in the promotion and development of the urban forest." Thank you to our friends at AUFC and this honor in recognition of the work of our sponsors, members and volunteer corps! We truly believe "Trees make better water!" and look forward to working with you in the future, combining our efforts in fulfilling our common missions through education, outreach and partnerships.
Watershed Challenge Winners: May Online Challenge to Arkansas Science and Technology Teachers and Students
1st Place: Hector Elementary School, Hector, AR. Teacher Kathy Brunetti.
Prize: Watershed Model Enviroscape - $800 value
2nd Place: R.E. Baker Elementary School, Bentonville, AR. Teacher Phyllis Abraham.
Prize: Magellan Triton 300 GPS unit - $150 value
3rd Place: Fayetteville High School, Fayetteville, AR. Teacher Robin Buff.
Prize: "Make Your Own Watershed" Model - $50 value
4th Place: Greenland High School, Greenland, AR. Teacher John Diesel.
Prize: Watershed Eco-Puzzle - $30 value
Congratulations to the IRWP Online Watershed Challenge May 2009 Winners!
Dr. Delia Haak
Executive Director
Illinois River Watershed Partnership
PO Box 8506
Fayetteville, AR 72703
www.irwp.org
479-238-4671
Illinois River Watershed Appreciation Day, Lake Fayetteville Veteran's Memorial Park
2:00 to 4:00 pm
Canoe races --- canoes and life vests provided by Lake Fayetteville Environmental Study Center
Geocaching treasure hunts --- GPS units and treasure hunt guides provided by USGS
Make your own Water-cycle beaded bracelets, enjoy Disney's Nemo and Ariel face paintings by local artists
Recycling bean bag toss, fishing and kid's games courtesy of Washington County Environmental Affairs and Benton County Extension Service
Sand volleyball with UA's Dr. Dirk Philipp!
4:30 to 7:00 pm
Scrumptious barbecue brisket and hot-dogs with the trimmings
Country western concert by local artist Marshall T. Mitchell http://www.marshallmitchell.com/
All Activities, Food, and Music are FREE! Come, bring your family and friends, join us for a beautiful day in the Illinois River Watershed! Park entrance located just east of Lowe's on Zion Road.
IRWP NEWS:
Arkansas Urban Forestry Council names the IRWP as it's Outstanding Organization of the Year "in recognition of the effort, dedication and outstanding contribution in the promotion and development of the urban forest." Thank you to our friends at AUFC and this honor in recognition of the work of our sponsors, members and volunteer corps! We truly believe "Trees make better water!" and look forward to working with you in the future, combining our efforts in fulfilling our common missions through education, outreach and partnerships.
Watershed Challenge Winners: May Online Challenge to Arkansas Science and Technology Teachers and Students
1st Place: Hector Elementary School, Hector, AR. Teacher Kathy Brunetti.
Prize: Watershed Model Enviroscape - $800 value
2nd Place: R.E. Baker Elementary School, Bentonville, AR. Teacher Phyllis Abraham.
Prize: Magellan Triton 300 GPS unit - $150 value
3rd Place: Fayetteville High School, Fayetteville, AR. Teacher Robin Buff.
Prize: "Make Your Own Watershed" Model - $50 value
4th Place: Greenland High School, Greenland, AR. Teacher John Diesel.
Prize: Watershed Eco-Puzzle - $30 value
Congratulations to the IRWP Online Watershed Challenge May 2009 Winners!
Dr. Delia Haak
Executive Director
Illinois River Watershed Partnership
PO Box 8506
Fayetteville, AR 72703
www.irwp.org
479-238-4671
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Arkansas officials say 'Don't Do Fescue'
Arkansas “Don't Do Fescue" is theme of AGFC public campaign
JONESBORO - Tall fescue is a widely used forage crop. It is insect resistant, tolerates poor soil and climatic conditions well and has a long growing season. Unfortunately, tall fescue also has a downside.
With approximately four million acres of pasturelands planted in tall fescue, Arkansas has a great deal of this crop. According to David Long, agricultural liaison with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the agency is working diligently to help the public understand the shortcomings of this type of grass.
"The AGFC has developed a new tool in its effort to educate landowners about the toxic and negative effects of Kentucky 31 Tall Fescue to farm wildlife. A new bumper sticker entitled 'Don't Do Fescue' is now being distributed to agency employees and others interested in spreading the word," Long said. Tall fescue is a common forage grass that has been planted across Arkansas for over 40 years.
Estimates are that about 70 percent-95 percent or 4 million acres of the pasturelands planted with tall fescue in Arkansas are infected with an endophyte fungus. The fungus causes declines in bobwhite quail, cottontail rabbits, grassland songbirds and also limited other game populations such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey.
"The fact that the plant is actually toxic to both domestic livestock and farm wildlife species is accepted by agriculture extension specialists and wildlife biologists alike," Long said. "The plant produces chemicals causing the fescue to have very toxic qualities. The alkaloids are found throughout the plant, but are especially concentrated in the seeds and leaves," he explained.
In cattle, the fungus causes excessive body temperatures, elevated respiratory rates, loss of appetite, body weight loss, lowered fertility rates and abortion of fetuses. Dairy cows often show sharp declines in milk production. Horses are affected also with more aborted fetuses, foaling problems, weak foals and reduced or no milk production. The CES estimates that this endopytic toxin cost American beef producers up to $1 billion a year in lost profits.
"It's very important for private landowners who desire viable wildlife populations on their property to know the effects of planting fescue," Long noted. "Many species of wildlife would directly suffer these same negative effects if they were confined to the pasturelands as are livestock. However, since they are free ranging, they simply avoid the fungus infected fescue pastures, but nevertheless, this results in loss of farm wildlife habitat on these acres. You may have deer and turkey travel through tall-fescue pastures, but they rarely find food sources available they can utilize, since the aggressiveness of the fescue usually results in solid stands of the plant," Long concluded.
The grass is a sod-forming turf with thick matted growth that also limits movement of young bobwhite quail, turkey and cottontail rabbits, provides no nesting habitat for wild turkey or quail, and is extremely poor habitat for many declining grassland species of songbirds. "Bottom line, fungus infected tall-fescue pastures offer little food, cover or nesting habitat to a broad range of farm wildlife," he said.
"Tall fescue has been planted in an estimated 4 million acres of the 5.4 million acres of pasture scattered over the state and for all practical purposes is of no value to farm wildlife. With the widespread establishment of tall fescue pastures, a great loss of wildlife habitat for deer, turkey, quail, cottontails and grassland songbirds has occurred.
Many landowners now recognize this problem and are interested in eliminating tall-fescue on some or all of their acreage. However, many landowners continue to plant tall-fescue, not knowing the detrimental effects it will have to wildlife. (There is an endophyte-free variety of tall fescue available for planting but it is less viable and hardy, and still provides very limited habitat for wildlife.)
We want to educate all landowners regarding this fact because there are other planting options to providing livestock forage and wildlife habitat on their farms," Long explained.
Please help spread the word to landowners "Don't Do Fescue!" by requesting a bumper sticker to place on your vehicle. Especially if they have an interest in managing for wildlife on their farm. For more information contact David Long at 877-972-5438 or dlong@agfc.state.ar.us.
JONESBORO - Tall fescue is a widely used forage crop. It is insect resistant, tolerates poor soil and climatic conditions well and has a long growing season. Unfortunately, tall fescue also has a downside.
With approximately four million acres of pasturelands planted in tall fescue, Arkansas has a great deal of this crop. According to David Long, agricultural liaison with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the agency is working diligently to help the public understand the shortcomings of this type of grass.
"The AGFC has developed a new tool in its effort to educate landowners about the toxic and negative effects of Kentucky 31 Tall Fescue to farm wildlife. A new bumper sticker entitled 'Don't Do Fescue' is now being distributed to agency employees and others interested in spreading the word," Long said. Tall fescue is a common forage grass that has been planted across Arkansas for over 40 years.
Estimates are that about 70 percent-95 percent or 4 million acres of the pasturelands planted with tall fescue in Arkansas are infected with an endophyte fungus. The fungus causes declines in bobwhite quail, cottontail rabbits, grassland songbirds and also limited other game populations such as white-tailed deer and wild turkey.
"The fact that the plant is actually toxic to both domestic livestock and farm wildlife species is accepted by agriculture extension specialists and wildlife biologists alike," Long said. "The plant produces chemicals causing the fescue to have very toxic qualities. The alkaloids are found throughout the plant, but are especially concentrated in the seeds and leaves," he explained.
In cattle, the fungus causes excessive body temperatures, elevated respiratory rates, loss of appetite, body weight loss, lowered fertility rates and abortion of fetuses. Dairy cows often show sharp declines in milk production. Horses are affected also with more aborted fetuses, foaling problems, weak foals and reduced or no milk production. The CES estimates that this endopytic toxin cost American beef producers up to $1 billion a year in lost profits.
"It's very important for private landowners who desire viable wildlife populations on their property to know the effects of planting fescue," Long noted. "Many species of wildlife would directly suffer these same negative effects if they were confined to the pasturelands as are livestock. However, since they are free ranging, they simply avoid the fungus infected fescue pastures, but nevertheless, this results in loss of farm wildlife habitat on these acres. You may have deer and turkey travel through tall-fescue pastures, but they rarely find food sources available they can utilize, since the aggressiveness of the fescue usually results in solid stands of the plant," Long concluded.
The grass is a sod-forming turf with thick matted growth that also limits movement of young bobwhite quail, turkey and cottontail rabbits, provides no nesting habitat for wild turkey or quail, and is extremely poor habitat for many declining grassland species of songbirds. "Bottom line, fungus infected tall-fescue pastures offer little food, cover or nesting habitat to a broad range of farm wildlife," he said.
"Tall fescue has been planted in an estimated 4 million acres of the 5.4 million acres of pasture scattered over the state and for all practical purposes is of no value to farm wildlife. With the widespread establishment of tall fescue pastures, a great loss of wildlife habitat for deer, turkey, quail, cottontails and grassland songbirds has occurred.
Many landowners now recognize this problem and are interested in eliminating tall-fescue on some or all of their acreage. However, many landowners continue to plant tall-fescue, not knowing the detrimental effects it will have to wildlife. (There is an endophyte-free variety of tall fescue available for planting but it is less viable and hardy, and still provides very limited habitat for wildlife.)
We want to educate all landowners regarding this fact because there are other planting options to providing livestock forage and wildlife habitat on their farms," Long explained.
Please help spread the word to landowners "Don't Do Fescue!" by requesting a bumper sticker to place on your vehicle. Especially if they have an interest in managing for wildlife on their farm. For more information contact David Long at 877-972-5438 or dlong@agfc.state.ar.us.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Land-use and green-infrastructure committee invites public to meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday June 8, 2009
AN INVITATION
Fayetteville Forward Economic Accountability Council
This council has been formed to include as many areas of concern and advocacy as possible that emerged from the Fayetteville Forward Summit held March 31- April 4.
“The Fayetteville Forward Summit was an open, inclusive, participatory event that brought forth the best ideas and heartfelt desires for the community, building on existing work, and connected these efforts to create a compelling vision for the future of our community. The result of this summit has established a foundation for economic development - moving the City of Fayetteville Forward for a sustainable future.” [see www.accessfayetteville.org for more info—click on “Fayetteville Forward” ]
Identified as the main categories under which most issues could be placed were: Economic Incentives; Transportation & Light Rail; Green Economy; Healthcare; Public Education; Creative Economy; Citizen Empowerment & Volunteers; Historic & Heritage; Local Food; Inclusion; and the one I’m writing you about: LAND USE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE.
THIS IS AN INVITATION TO ATTEND THE FIRST MEETING OF THE
COMMITTEE ON LAND USE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE,
JUNE 4, (Thursday), 7 PM, Rm 111*
City Hall (113 W. Mountain)
We want your interest, passion, knowledge, input, ideas, etc. in how we can bring together all the ingredients necessary to make land use and green infrastructure policy a reality for our city.
This is an open meeting and anyone interested is invited. Please pass this invitation on to others, who may want to join our discussions.
[Room 111 is on the Mountain St. entry level—go through the door on the left and behind the center staircase and look for a sign to this room.]
Fran Alexander
Land Use & Green Infrastructure Committee Chair
442-5307
frana@nwarktimes.com
(Please call or email if you can not attend but want to be involved or have questions.)
Fayetteville Forward Economic Accountability Council
This council has been formed to include as many areas of concern and advocacy as possible that emerged from the Fayetteville Forward Summit held March 31- April 4.
“The Fayetteville Forward Summit was an open, inclusive, participatory event that brought forth the best ideas and heartfelt desires for the community, building on existing work, and connected these efforts to create a compelling vision for the future of our community. The result of this summit has established a foundation for economic development - moving the City of Fayetteville Forward for a sustainable future.” [see www.accessfayetteville.org for more info—click on “Fayetteville Forward” ]
Identified as the main categories under which most issues could be placed were: Economic Incentives; Transportation & Light Rail; Green Economy; Healthcare; Public Education; Creative Economy; Citizen Empowerment & Volunteers; Historic & Heritage; Local Food; Inclusion; and the one I’m writing you about: LAND USE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE.
THIS IS AN INVITATION TO ATTEND THE FIRST MEETING OF THE
COMMITTEE ON LAND USE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE,
JUNE 4, (Thursday), 7 PM, Rm 111*
City Hall (113 W. Mountain)
We want your interest, passion, knowledge, input, ideas, etc. in how we can bring together all the ingredients necessary to make land use and green infrastructure policy a reality for our city.
This is an open meeting and anyone interested is invited. Please pass this invitation on to others, who may want to join our discussions.
[Room 111 is on the Mountain St. entry level—go through the door on the left and behind the center staircase and look for a sign to this room.]
Fran Alexander
Land Use & Green Infrastructure Committee Chair
442-5307
frana@nwarktimes.com
(Please call or email if you can not attend but want to be involved or have questions.)
Illinois River Watershed Partnership's appreciation Day set for Saturday June 6, 2009, at Lake Fayetteville
Illinois River Watershed Appreciation Day
Enjoy our watershed, meet new friends, greet old friends ... Bring the Family!
WHEN: June 6 from 2 pm to 7 pm.
WHERE: Lake Fayetteville Veteran’s Pavilion entrance on Zion Rd just east of Lowe's
* Geocaching GIS treasure hunt with USGS water quality experts 2 pm – 4 pm
* Family games, canoe races, volleyball tournament 2 pm – 4 pm
* Free delicious barbecue dinner 4:30 pm
* Recognition of IRWP StreamTeam Volunteers 5 pm
* Free family folk music concert by local artist Marshall T. Mitchell 5:30 pm
Co-sponsors USGS, AWRC, Washington County Environmental Affairs, UA Cooperative Extension Service
www.irwp.org
Friday, May 22, 2009
Public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to consider rezoning sale-barn property to allow Multistory apartment buildings next to National Cemetery
Please click on images to ENLARGE and read.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Joyce Hale to present program on rainwater storage and use at 9:30 a.m. Saturday
Joyce Hale of Fayetteville, a long-time environmental activist and leader in the League of Women Voters, will present a program on use of cisterns and other methods to store and use rainwater at homes and businesses at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the Northwest Technical Institute
www.nti.tec.ar.us
709 S Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR 72764
(479) 751-8824
View Larger Map
www.nti.tec.ar.us
709 S Old Missouri Rd
Springdale, AR 72764
(479) 751-8824
View Larger Map
Annual War Eagle celebration Saturday near Huntsville
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Audubon Arkansas invitation to the third annual War Eagle celebration tomorrow at Withrow Springs State Park.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
New York Times article on a true watershed warrior
RONALD GATTO is an unlikely environmental hero. A former power-lifter, he once bench-pressed 595 pounds and his left biceps bears a tattoo of a police bulldog with handcuffs and a nightstick. He loves cars, and has two vintage Chevrolets in his garage, a green 1960 Impala and a bright red 1971 Chevelle Supersport.
But to many environmentalists, Mr. Gatto is a prophet crying out in the wilderness of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, where he works as a police captain, charged with protecting the reservoirs that serve New York City and Westchester.
For the rest of the story, please click on
New York Times article on a true watershed warrior
and follow the links at the bottom of each page online to read the next one.
But to many environmentalists, Mr. Gatto is a prophet crying out in the wilderness of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, where he works as a police captain, charged with protecting the reservoirs that serve New York City and Westchester.
For the rest of the story, please click on
New York Times article on a true watershed warrior
and follow the links at the bottom of each page online to read the next one.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Watershed groups meet separately tonight in ROGERS
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of construction site mud being washed down S. Hill Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on May 11, 2009. Construction machines and dumptrucks put a lot of silt in Northwest Arkansas Streams. Watershed groups must combine forces to increase pressure on all jurisdictions in the region to enforce stormwater regulations to prevent flooding and to protect water quality.
The annual member's meeting of the Association for Beaver Lake Environment is at 6:30 p.m. TODAY (Tuesday, May 12th), at the Rogers Public Library.
We will be electing members for our Board of Directors. Hope to see you there.
IRWP Board of Directors Meeting
Tuesday, May 12, 6pm – 9pm
Rogers, Nabholz Construction Headquarters
The annual member's meeting of the Association for Beaver Lake Environment is at 6:30 p.m. TODAY (Tuesday, May 12th), at the Rogers Public Library.
We will be electing members for our Board of Directors. Hope to see you there.
IRWP Board of Directors Meeting
Tuesday, May 12, 6pm – 9pm
Rogers, Nabholz Construction Headquarters
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Frog songs from Pinnacle Prairie adjacent to World Peace Wetland Prairie
Please click start arrow beneath window to watch video and hear frog sounds at about 10 p.m. May 5, 2009, in the watershed of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River, a tributary of Beaver Lake.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Third annual War Eagle Appreciation Day May 16th at Withrow Springs State Park
Kathy Cole & 4 Guys Named Moe Play May 16th at War Eagle Appreciation Day
Kathy Cole and 4 Guys Named Moe will be the headliner entertainment for the 3rd Annual War Eagle Appreciation Day. The event is Saturday, May 16th, at Crossbow Pavilion at Withrow Springs State Park. The park is located about 5 miles north of Huntsville off of Hwy. 23. The band will play from 2-4 p.m.
The band features Buddy Shute on guitar, Kathy Cole on vocals, Jim StClair on percussion, Mark McGee playing harmonica, and Bud Shaver on bass.
“We’re real excited to be a part of this event,” Cole said, noting that she moved here from New Hampshire this past June.
Cole said the band’s name is a variation on the Louis Jordan song “Five Guys Named Moe.” The band plays some tunes by Jordan, as well as Louis Prima jazz tunes, along with lots of numbers from the 1940s to about 1975. They cover a wide range of musical styles including rhythm and blues, jazz and doo-wop.
Admission is free. Organizers suggest members of the public bring their own lawn chairs. Activities also include a family friendly educational float on the War Eagle, with canoes launching from 9 to 11 a.m. Those wishing to participate may bring their own canoes. The 5-mile float will begin at the Hwy. 412 bridge (across from Ma and Pa’s Bent & Dent) and end at Withrow Springs State Park. Shuttle service for canoeists will be available from 8:30-10:30 a.m. The public is invited to join festivities at Crossbow Pavilion, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., where there will be a cookout, sponsored by Arvest Bank of Huntsville, for the first 400 people. In addition, there will be live music and educational exhibits focusing on topics such as water quality, history of the area, environmental issues, agriculture, and safety. For additional information, contact the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce at 479-738-6000 or chamber@madisoncounty.net or Withrow Springs State Park at 479-559-2593.
Event partners include the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, Arvest Bank, Ozark Natural Science Center, Arkansas State Parks (Withrow Springs State Park, Hobbs State Park), U.S. Geological Survey, Madison County Search and Rescue, Madison County Solid Waste and Recycling, Madison County Record, Kiwanis Club, Madison Coffee House & Wine Hill Bakery, Wal-Mart, Ma and Pa’s Bent & Dent, Huntsville Insurance, Audubon Arkansas, Huntsville Masonic Lodge, and Beaver Water District.
War Eagle is a sub-watershed of Beaver Lake Watershed. A watershed is an area of land that drains water, sediment, and dissolved materials to a common receiving body or outlet, which in this case is Beaver Lake, the primary source of drinking water for most of Northwest Arkansas. The purpose of the event is to draw attention to the rich history of War Eagle and the many benefits that War Eagle Creek brings to Madison County and Northwest Arkansans.
.
Kathy Cole and 4 Guys Named Moe will be the headliner entertainment for the 3rd Annual War Eagle Appreciation Day. The event is Saturday, May 16th, at Crossbow Pavilion at Withrow Springs State Park. The park is located about 5 miles north of Huntsville off of Hwy. 23. The band will play from 2-4 p.m.
The band features Buddy Shute on guitar, Kathy Cole on vocals, Jim StClair on percussion, Mark McGee playing harmonica, and Bud Shaver on bass.
“We’re real excited to be a part of this event,” Cole said, noting that she moved here from New Hampshire this past June.
Cole said the band’s name is a variation on the Louis Jordan song “Five Guys Named Moe.” The band plays some tunes by Jordan, as well as Louis Prima jazz tunes, along with lots of numbers from the 1940s to about 1975. They cover a wide range of musical styles including rhythm and blues, jazz and doo-wop.
Admission is free. Organizers suggest members of the public bring their own lawn chairs. Activities also include a family friendly educational float on the War Eagle, with canoes launching from 9 to 11 a.m. Those wishing to participate may bring their own canoes. The 5-mile float will begin at the Hwy. 412 bridge (across from Ma and Pa’s Bent & Dent) and end at Withrow Springs State Park. Shuttle service for canoeists will be available from 8:30-10:30 a.m. The public is invited to join festivities at Crossbow Pavilion, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., where there will be a cookout, sponsored by Arvest Bank of Huntsville, for the first 400 people. In addition, there will be live music and educational exhibits focusing on topics such as water quality, history of the area, environmental issues, agriculture, and safety. For additional information, contact the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce at 479-738-6000 or chamber@madisoncounty.net or Withrow Springs State Park at 479-559-2593.
Event partners include the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, Arvest Bank, Ozark Natural Science Center, Arkansas State Parks (Withrow Springs State Park, Hobbs State Park), U.S. Geological Survey, Madison County Search and Rescue, Madison County Solid Waste and Recycling, Madison County Record, Kiwanis Club, Madison Coffee House & Wine Hill Bakery, Wal-Mart, Ma and Pa’s Bent & Dent, Huntsville Insurance, Audubon Arkansas, Huntsville Masonic Lodge, and Beaver Water District.
War Eagle is a sub-watershed of Beaver Lake Watershed. A watershed is an area of land that drains water, sediment, and dissolved materials to a common receiving body or outlet, which in this case is Beaver Lake, the primary source of drinking water for most of Northwest Arkansas. The purpose of the event is to draw attention to the rich history of War Eagle and the many benefits that War Eagle Creek brings to Madison County and Northwest Arkansans.
.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
FarmToTable theme of today's program in the Rose Garden of the Walton Art Center with renewable-energy lecture at Night Bird bookstore at 2 p.m.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of OMNI Springfest poster.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Why are the contractors trenching near the oak trees inside the dedicated park land on the development site northwest of So. Duncan Ave. and 11th St.?
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of digging machine inside park at Hill Place apartment development.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Beaver Water District honored for public-relations work
Beaver Water District Receives Award for Watershed Report
April 29, 2009
On April 29, Beaver Water District took home a 2009 APEX Award for Beaver Lake And Its Watershed 2008 from the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in the printed material-publication category. The APEX awards recognize excellence in the public relations profession, particularly the use of exemplary communication practices in the general business community. Amy Wilson, Director of Public Affairs for Beaver Water District, attended the award luncheon and received the award on the District’s behalf.
Since 1947, the Public Relations Society of America has advanced the standards of the public-relations profession and provided members with professional-development opportunities through continuing education, information exchange, and research projects conducted on the national and local level. More than 20,000 members strong, organized in 114 chapters, PRSA is the world’s largest organization for public-relations professionals. The Northwest Arkansas PRSA chapter is one of the fastest-growing chapters in the nation: a dynamic assembly of seasoned veterans, spokespeople and communication specialists from major corporations, recent graduates new to careers, private consultants, agency representatives, researchers and nonprofit leaders. For more about PRSA, visit www.nwaprsa.org. To download and read a copy of Beaver Lake And Its Watershed 2008, visit www.bwdh2o.org.
Beaver Water District supplies drinking water to more than 250,000 people and industries in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and surrounding areas. These cities then resell the water to surrounding towns and communities. The District’s mission is to serve our customers in the Benton and Washington County area by providing high-quality drinking water that meets or exceeds all federal and state regulatory requirements in such quantities as meets their demands and is economically priced consistent with our quality standards.
Amy Wilson
Director of Public Affairs, Beaver Water District
P.O. Box 400, Lowell, AR 72745
479-756-3651/awilson@bwdh2o.org
www.bwdh2o.org
April 29, 2009
On April 29, Beaver Water District took home a 2009 APEX Award for Beaver Lake And Its Watershed 2008 from the Northwest Arkansas Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in the printed material-publication category. The APEX awards recognize excellence in the public relations profession, particularly the use of exemplary communication practices in the general business community. Amy Wilson, Director of Public Affairs for Beaver Water District, attended the award luncheon and received the award on the District’s behalf.
Since 1947, the Public Relations Society of America has advanced the standards of the public-relations profession and provided members with professional-development opportunities through continuing education, information exchange, and research projects conducted on the national and local level. More than 20,000 members strong, organized in 114 chapters, PRSA is the world’s largest organization for public-relations professionals. The Northwest Arkansas PRSA chapter is one of the fastest-growing chapters in the nation: a dynamic assembly of seasoned veterans, spokespeople and communication specialists from major corporations, recent graduates new to careers, private consultants, agency representatives, researchers and nonprofit leaders. For more about PRSA, visit www.nwaprsa.org. To download and read a copy of Beaver Lake And Its Watershed 2008, visit www.bwdh2o.org.
Beaver Water District supplies drinking water to more than 250,000 people and industries in Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville and surrounding areas. These cities then resell the water to surrounding towns and communities. The District’s mission is to serve our customers in the Benton and Washington County area by providing high-quality drinking water that meets or exceeds all federal and state regulatory requirements in such quantities as meets their demands and is economically priced consistent with our quality standards.
Amy Wilson
Director of Public Affairs, Beaver Water District
P.O. Box 400, Lowell, AR 72745
479-756-3651/awilson@bwdh2o.org
www.bwdh2o.org
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The struggle for the solar future subject of program Saturday afternoon at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of poster.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Solar Power Struggle
Professor Richard Hutchinson of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston will speak on "The Struggle for the Solar Future" at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 2, at Nightbird Books on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
An inquiry into environmental change and the obstacles and opportunities in the path of the renewable energy transition.
Sponsored by OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
Fran Alexander says DUH to ADEQ's weak-kneed response to polluters
ADEQ Study: Drilling Fluid Disposal Done Improperly by Many
By Arkansas Business Staff - 4/20/2009 4:21:00 PM
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Monday announced that a recent study it conducted determined that fluids used in natural gas drilling have been "improperly applied by landfarms operating in the state, thus endangering the environment."
Drilling fluids are used in the fracturing process that breaks apart shale, allowing trapped natural gas to seep out. The practice is used in the Fayetteville Shale Play in north-central Arkansas.
Of 11 sites studied, all had improperly discharged the fluids, according to a department release. The department has taken actions against the 11 sites and has sought to revoke permits for two sites. The discharges resulted in improper runoff and chloride concentrations in soil that were abnormally high. The department began the study in November, after halting consideration for new landfarm permits.
"With the increase in the number of landfarms and applications for landfarms due to expanded drilling activity in the state, concerns about the resulting environmental impact warranted a closer look at these operations," Marks said.
The study supports new enforcement standards, including that routine soil and water sampling be conducted in front of an ADEQ inspector and fencing be erected around all on-site ponds.
Scientists in the department's environmental preservation and water divisions prepared the report and visited the 11 landfarms between November and January.
During several visits, inspectors discovered chloride concentrations downstream and other contaminants in higher concentration downstream than were present upstream. Four facilities also had chloride levels in fluids above the acceptable limit - 3,000 milligrams per liter.
Copyright © 2009, Arkansas Business Limited Partnership. All Rights Reserved.
By Arkansas Business Staff - 4/20/2009 4:21:00 PM
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Monday announced that a recent study it conducted determined that fluids used in natural gas drilling have been "improperly applied by landfarms operating in the state, thus endangering the environment."
Drilling fluids are used in the fracturing process that breaks apart shale, allowing trapped natural gas to seep out. The practice is used in the Fayetteville Shale Play in north-central Arkansas.
Of 11 sites studied, all had improperly discharged the fluids, according to a department release. The department has taken actions against the 11 sites and has sought to revoke permits for two sites. The discharges resulted in improper runoff and chloride concentrations in soil that were abnormally high. The department began the study in November, after halting consideration for new landfarm permits.
"With the increase in the number of landfarms and applications for landfarms due to expanded drilling activity in the state, concerns about the resulting environmental impact warranted a closer look at these operations," Marks said.
The study supports new enforcement standards, including that routine soil and water sampling be conducted in front of an ADEQ inspector and fencing be erected around all on-site ponds.
Scientists in the department's environmental preservation and water divisions prepared the report and visited the 11 landfarms between November and January.
During several visits, inspectors discovered chloride concentrations downstream and other contaminants in higher concentration downstream than were present upstream. Four facilities also had chloride levels in fluids above the acceptable limit - 3,000 milligrams per liter.
Copyright © 2009, Arkansas Business Limited Partnership. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Lake Fayetteville outdoor festival excites thousands on April 25, 2009
Please click on image to ENLARGE photo from the April 25, 2009, Lake Fayetteville Outdoor Festival.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Blue-gray Gnat-catchers active at WPWP on April 23, 2009
Please click on images to ENLARGE and please hit comment button below and identify the Polioptila caerulea on World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 23, 2009. Several were spotted flitting about. Thanks to Joe Neal for identifying the bird.
South Dakota Birds and Birding
Devoted to birds, birding, and photography
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Polioptila caerulea
Length: 4.5 inches Wingspan: 6 inches Seasonality: Summer
ID Keys: Blue-gray upperparts, white underparts, bold white eyering, white outer tail feathers
While still an uncommon sight in most of South Dakota, the range of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher has been steadily expanding throughout the 20th century. Very small birds normally found in woodlands, they can sometimes be difficult to observe as they flit about the tree tops.
Habitat: Varies by region, preferring deciduous forests in the East, pine forests with a deciduous understory in the South, and shrubby habitat in the West.
Diet: Feeds almost exclusively on insects and spiders.
Behavior: Extremely active, foraging actively among trees and shrubs in search of insects. Will take prey while perched, hovering, or by flycatching and catching insects in mid-air.
Nesting: May and June
Breeding Map: Breeding Bird Survey map
Song: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Song
Migration: Summers throughout much of the United States except for the Pacific Northwest and the northern tier of states. Winters in the extreme southern United States and southward.
Similar Species: Similar to the other Gnatcatchers, but these other species (Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, California Gnatcatcher, Black-capped Gnatcatcher) all have normal ranges well to the south of South Dakota and have never been seen in this state.
Status: They have expanded in numbers and in range in the 20th century, an expansion that probably is still continuing.
South Dakota "Hotspot": Most common in the extreme southeastern part of the state, I've had very good luck finding them at both Newton Hills State Park, and the Big Sioux Recreation Area.
Further Information: 1) Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
2) Cornell University's "All About Birds - Blue-gray Gnatcatcher"
3) eNature.com: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Photo Information: July 1st, 2006 - Big Sioux Recreation Area near Brandon - Terry Sohl
Additional Photos: Click on the image chips or text links below for additional, higher-resolution Blue-gray Gnatcatcher photos.
South Dakota Status: Uncommon summer breeder in the extreme southeastern part of the state. Casual breeder and visitor in the Black Hills.
Additional Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Photos
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 3
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 4
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 6 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 7 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHTED. Click below if you have interest in any of these photos for:
Commercial Use Fine Art Print Personal Usage
SOUTH DAKOTA BIRDS AND BIRDING - LOCATIONS OF WEBSITE VISITORS
Please mail all comments/suggestions/gripes/complaints to: Terry L. Sohl
Click here for other references used to compile this page
South Dakota Birds and Birding
Devoted to birds, birding, and photography
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Polioptila caerulea
Length: 4.5 inches Wingspan: 6 inches Seasonality: Summer
ID Keys: Blue-gray upperparts, white underparts, bold white eyering, white outer tail feathers
While still an uncommon sight in most of South Dakota, the range of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher has been steadily expanding throughout the 20th century. Very small birds normally found in woodlands, they can sometimes be difficult to observe as they flit about the tree tops.
Habitat: Varies by region, preferring deciduous forests in the East, pine forests with a deciduous understory in the South, and shrubby habitat in the West.
Diet: Feeds almost exclusively on insects and spiders.
Behavior: Extremely active, foraging actively among trees and shrubs in search of insects. Will take prey while perched, hovering, or by flycatching and catching insects in mid-air.
Nesting: May and June
Breeding Map: Breeding Bird Survey map
Song: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Song
Migration: Summers throughout much of the United States except for the Pacific Northwest and the northern tier of states. Winters in the extreme southern United States and southward.
Similar Species: Similar to the other Gnatcatchers, but these other species (Black-tailed Gnatcatcher, California Gnatcatcher, Black-capped Gnatcatcher) all have normal ranges well to the south of South Dakota and have never been seen in this state.
Status: They have expanded in numbers and in range in the 20th century, an expansion that probably is still continuing.
South Dakota "Hotspot": Most common in the extreme southeastern part of the state, I've had very good luck finding them at both Newton Hills State Park, and the Big Sioux Recreation Area.
Further Information: 1) Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
2) Cornell University's "All About Birds - Blue-gray Gnatcatcher"
3) eNature.com: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Photo Information: July 1st, 2006 - Big Sioux Recreation Area near Brandon - Terry Sohl
Additional Photos: Click on the image chips or text links below for additional, higher-resolution Blue-gray Gnatcatcher photos.
South Dakota Status: Uncommon summer breeder in the extreme southeastern part of the state. Casual breeder and visitor in the Black Hills.
Additional Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Photos
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 3
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 4
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 6 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 7 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHTED. Click below if you have interest in any of these photos for:
Commercial Use Fine Art Print Personal Usage
SOUTH DAKOTA BIRDS AND BIRDING - LOCATIONS OF WEBSITE VISITORS
Please mail all comments/suggestions/gripes/complaints to: Terry L. Sohl
Click here for other references used to compile this page
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Cleanup of campus tributary of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River successful
Please click on images to ENLARGE views of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River south of Martin Luther King Boulevard on Aril 22, 2009.
Earth Day a great day for cleaning up urban streams
Please click on images to ENLARGE views of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River south of Martin Luther King Boulevard on Aril 22, 2009.
Benton County officials may have written a good plan but don't expect compliance
Please click on images of typical Benton County stormwater protection efforts along the Osage Creek in the Illinois River watershed on Oct. 15, 2007.
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Stormwater violations so common in Benton County that this headline sounds like a really bad joke. The lead sentence is misleading.
Benton County Meets Stormwater Requirements
By THE MORNING NEWS
Benton County has met all state and federal stormwater requirements, said Aaron Sadler, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality spokesman.
The agency sent County Judge Dave Bisbee a letter April 13 that shows the county's 2008 annual report has been reviewed and is compliant. The county is required to submit a stormwater plan report annually but had not done so since 2006, according to state records. Sadler said the plan submitted this year appears to be complete.
The county adopted an "enforcement mechanism" as part of its stormwater plan Jan. 30, according to county reports. Bisbee signed a court order just before the Feb. 1 state deadline.
The stormwater regulations are meant to curb sediment runoff from construction sites in the county's designated area. That area is 3 square miles of the most densely populated unincorporated areas, including Monte Ne and Prairie Creek. Federal regulations already apply to all construction sites disturbing 1 acre or more, and those that are smaller and part of a larger development, stormwater officials have said. However, the county must enforce regulations in the designated area.
The stormwater regulations mostly affect builders.
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Stormwater violations so common in Benton County that this headline sounds like a really bad joke. The lead sentence is misleading.
Benton County Meets Stormwater Requirements
By THE MORNING NEWS
Benton County has met all state and federal stormwater requirements, said Aaron Sadler, Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality spokesman.
The agency sent County Judge Dave Bisbee a letter April 13 that shows the county's 2008 annual report has been reviewed and is compliant. The county is required to submit a stormwater plan report annually but had not done so since 2006, according to state records. Sadler said the plan submitted this year appears to be complete.
The county adopted an "enforcement mechanism" as part of its stormwater plan Jan. 30, according to county reports. Bisbee signed a court order just before the Feb. 1 state deadline.
The stormwater regulations are meant to curb sediment runoff from construction sites in the county's designated area. That area is 3 square miles of the most densely populated unincorporated areas, including Monte Ne and Prairie Creek. Federal regulations already apply to all construction sites disturbing 1 acre or more, and those that are smaller and part of a larger development, stormwater officials have said. However, the county must enforce regulations in the designated area.
The stormwater regulations mostly affect builders.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Video explains how drilling and production of natural gas pollute without regulation and who let the problem develop
Friday, April 17, 2009
Brown thrashers may be spotted at World Peace Wetland Prairie during Sunday's Earth Day celebration
Please click on image to Enlarge view of one of the many species of birds feeding and picking nesting sites on World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 17, 2009. The elusive brown thrasher is often able to slip into the thickets before a camera can capture its image. But the attraction of scattered brush piles and the excitement of mating season can make them a bit careless.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Students, residents of Fayetteville meeting to unify environmental efforts
Subject Attention UofA RSOs and Fellow Fayettevillians
What: An All-School, All-RSO Meeting!
When: Wednesday, April 15th @ 5:30 p.m.
Where: In Memorial Hall Inside the Landscape Architecture Studios (Come in the Main Entrance and its behind the glass partition).
Why: To Organize and Focus the Efforts of All of the Like-Minded, Hard-Working RSOs on Campus
In conjunction with Maggie Bailey of the NWA Audubon Society, Campus Sustainability Coordinator Nick Brown, members of the Fayetteville City Government, and many others, we are in the process of coordinating the efforts of all environmentally, culturally, and community-focused RSOs to help streamline projects and allow for inter-group collaboration on projects of all size and relevance.
We are striving to create this 'campus coalition' because often times our groups just aren't large enough on their own to tackle some of the lofty goals we often set for ourselves. This way, students from CSES, Hort Club, ASLA, SIFE, etc. can intermingle and help out on projects they wouldn't otherwise know about, without feeling bad for being unable to help out their department's group.
Some of you may know that have already had one meeting regarding this subject, but many of you were unable to attend. If you were not at the last meeting, here is a short summary of what was discussed:
1) A Mullins Creek (Town Branch on the UA campus) Cleanup/Redevelopment: Nick Brown discussed the need for student help in cleaning this stream of waste, invasive species, etc. Earth Day, April 22, will be the first such opportunity and we will be finalizing plans for this at the upcoming meeting.
2) We spent time discussing the benefits that the Obama's new Victory Garden at the White House can have on our community. If ever there was a time to stress urban/community agriculture, this is it!
2) Maggie Bailey of NWA Audubon brought up the need for broader goals that these projects can fit into. Her primary goal at this point is raising awareness regarding CO2 emissions and some of the rediculous Power Plant activities courtesy of SWEPCO. We will be looking at formulating some tangible, sweeping missions/goals for this 'campus coalition' at our next meeting.
3) We also spent time focusing on providing an index of RSOs, within which we could list each group's goals, projects, members, etc. to encourage both new membership and inter-RSO collaboration. We need all of you to attend our upcoming meeting for this to work!
And finally, if you plan on attending our upcoming meeting, please RSVP to me via email NLT Monday evening, April 13. If you have any questions, please email me and I'll be glad to help!
We need your help, could you use ours?
Respectfully,
Billy Fleming
Student ASLA President - Arkansas Chapter
What: An All-School, All-RSO Meeting!
When: Wednesday, April 15th @ 5:30 p.m.
Where: In Memorial Hall Inside the Landscape Architecture Studios (Come in the Main Entrance and its behind the glass partition).
Why: To Organize and Focus the Efforts of All of the Like-Minded, Hard-Working RSOs on Campus
In conjunction with Maggie Bailey of the NWA Audubon Society, Campus Sustainability Coordinator Nick Brown, members of the Fayetteville City Government, and many others, we are in the process of coordinating the efforts of all environmentally, culturally, and community-focused RSOs to help streamline projects and allow for inter-group collaboration on projects of all size and relevance.
We are striving to create this 'campus coalition' because often times our groups just aren't large enough on their own to tackle some of the lofty goals we often set for ourselves. This way, students from CSES, Hort Club, ASLA, SIFE, etc. can intermingle and help out on projects they wouldn't otherwise know about, without feeling bad for being unable to help out their department's group.
Some of you may know that have already had one meeting regarding this subject, but many of you were unable to attend. If you were not at the last meeting, here is a short summary of what was discussed:
1) A Mullins Creek (Town Branch on the UA campus) Cleanup/Redevelopment: Nick Brown discussed the need for student help in cleaning this stream of waste, invasive species, etc. Earth Day, April 22, will be the first such opportunity and we will be finalizing plans for this at the upcoming meeting.
2) We spent time discussing the benefits that the Obama's new Victory Garden at the White House can have on our community. If ever there was a time to stress urban/community agriculture, this is it!
2) Maggie Bailey of NWA Audubon brought up the need for broader goals that these projects can fit into. Her primary goal at this point is raising awareness regarding CO2 emissions and some of the rediculous Power Plant activities courtesy of SWEPCO. We will be looking at formulating some tangible, sweeping missions/goals for this 'campus coalition' at our next meeting.
3) We also spent time focusing on providing an index of RSOs, within which we could list each group's goals, projects, members, etc. to encourage both new membership and inter-RSO collaboration. We need all of you to attend our upcoming meeting for this to work!
And finally, if you plan on attending our upcoming meeting, please RSVP to me via email NLT Monday evening, April 13. If you have any questions, please email me and I'll be glad to help!
We need your help, could you use ours?
Respectfully,
Billy Fleming
Student ASLA President - Arkansas Chapter
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Honeybees and all pollinators threatened by pesticides
Please click on images to ENLARGE view in top photo of honeybee on redbud and bumblebee in second photo on redbud in a chemical-free area around World Peace Wetland Prairie on April 8, 2009.
Honeybees in Danger
Sunday 12 April 2009
by: Evaggelos Vallianatos, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students. He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers' crops, he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent.
Honeybees have been in terrible straits.
A little history explains this tragedy.
For millennia, honeybees lived in symbiotic relationship with societies all over the world.
The Greeks loved them. In the eighth century BCE, the epic poet Hesiod considered them gifts of the gods to just farmers. And in the fourth century of our era, the Greek mathematician Pappos admired their hexagonal cells, crediting them with "geometrical forethought."\
However, industrialized agriculture is not friendly to honeybees.
In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped into nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles.
What makes this microencapsulated formulation more dangerous to bees than the technical material is the very technology of the "time release" microcapsule.\
This acutely toxic insecticide, born of chemical warfare, would be on the surface of the flower for several days. The foraging bee, if alive after its visit to the beautiful white flowers of almonds, for example, laden with invisible spheres of asphyxiating gas, would be bringing back to its home pollen and nectar mixed with parathion.
It is possible that the nectar, which the bee makes into honey, and the pollen, might end up in some food store to be bought and eaten by human beings.
Beekeepers are well aware of what is happening to their bees, including the potential that their honey may not be fit for humans.
Moreover, many beekeepers do not throw away the honey, pollen and wax of colonies destroyed by encapsulated parathion or other poisons. They melt the wax for new combs: And they sell both honey and pollen to the public.
Government "regulators" know about this danger.
An academic expert, Carl Johansen, professor of entomology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, called the microencapsulated methyl parathion "the most destructive bee poisoning insecticide ever developed."
In 1976, the US Department of Agriculture published a report by one of its former employees, S. E. McGregor, a honeybee expert who documented that about a third of what we eat benefits from honeybee pollination. This includes vegetables, oilseeds and domesticated animals eating bee-pollinated hay.
In 2007, the value of food dependent on honeybees was $15 billion in the United States.
McGregor also pointed out that insect-pollinated legumes collect nitrogen from the air, storing it in their roots and enriching the soil. In addition, insect pollination makes the crops more wholesome and abundant. He advised the farmer he should never forget that "no cultural practice will cause fruit or seed to set if its pollination is neglected."\
In addition, McGregor blamed the chemical industry for seducing the farmers to its potent toxins. He said:
"[P]esticides are like dope drugs. The more they are used the more powerful the next one must be to give satisfaction" and therein develops the spiraling effect, the pesticide treadmill. The chemical salesman, in pressuring the grower to use his product, practically assumes the role of the "dope pusher." Once the victim, the grower, is "hooked," he becomes a steady and an ever-increasing user.
No government agency listened to McGregor.
The result of America's pesticide treadmill is that now, in 2009, honeybees and other pollinators are moving towards extinction.
In October 2006, the US National Research Council warned of the" "demonstrably downward" trends in the populations of pollinators. For the first time since 1922, American farmers are renting imported bees for their crops. They are even buying bees from Australia.
Honeybees, the National Academies report said, pollinate more than 90 crops in America, but have declined by 30 percent in the last 20 years alone. The scientists who wrote the report expressed alarm at the precipitous decline of the pollinators. Unfortunately, this made no difference to EPA, which failed to ban the microencapsulated parathion that is so deadly to honeybees.
Bee experts know that insecticides cause brain damage to the bees, disorienting them, making it often impossible for them to find their way home.
This is a consequence of decades of agribusiness warfare against nature and, in time, honeybees. In addition, beekeepers truck billions of bees all over the country for pollination, depriving them of good food, stressing them enormously, and, very possibly, injuring their health.
-------
Evaggelos Vallianatos, former EPA analyst, is the author of "This Land Is Their Land" and "The Passion of the Greeks.
Honeybees in Danger
Sunday 12 April 2009
by: Evaggelos Vallianatos, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students. He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers' crops, he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent.
Honeybees have been in terrible straits.
A little history explains this tragedy.
For millennia, honeybees lived in symbiotic relationship with societies all over the world.
The Greeks loved them. In the eighth century BCE, the epic poet Hesiod considered them gifts of the gods to just farmers. And in the fourth century of our era, the Greek mathematician Pappos admired their hexagonal cells, crediting them with "geometrical forethought."\
However, industrialized agriculture is not friendly to honeybees.
In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped into nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles.
What makes this microencapsulated formulation more dangerous to bees than the technical material is the very technology of the "time release" microcapsule.\
This acutely toxic insecticide, born of chemical warfare, would be on the surface of the flower for several days. The foraging bee, if alive after its visit to the beautiful white flowers of almonds, for example, laden with invisible spheres of asphyxiating gas, would be bringing back to its home pollen and nectar mixed with parathion.
It is possible that the nectar, which the bee makes into honey, and the pollen, might end up in some food store to be bought and eaten by human beings.
Beekeepers are well aware of what is happening to their bees, including the potential that their honey may not be fit for humans.
Moreover, many beekeepers do not throw away the honey, pollen and wax of colonies destroyed by encapsulated parathion or other poisons. They melt the wax for new combs: And they sell both honey and pollen to the public.
Government "regulators" know about this danger.
An academic expert, Carl Johansen, professor of entomology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, called the microencapsulated methyl parathion "the most destructive bee poisoning insecticide ever developed."
In 1976, the US Department of Agriculture published a report by one of its former employees, S. E. McGregor, a honeybee expert who documented that about a third of what we eat benefits from honeybee pollination. This includes vegetables, oilseeds and domesticated animals eating bee-pollinated hay.
In 2007, the value of food dependent on honeybees was $15 billion in the United States.
McGregor also pointed out that insect-pollinated legumes collect nitrogen from the air, storing it in their roots and enriching the soil. In addition, insect pollination makes the crops more wholesome and abundant. He advised the farmer he should never forget that "no cultural practice will cause fruit or seed to set if its pollination is neglected."\
In addition, McGregor blamed the chemical industry for seducing the farmers to its potent toxins. He said:
"[P]esticides are like dope drugs. The more they are used the more powerful the next one must be to give satisfaction" and therein develops the spiraling effect, the pesticide treadmill. The chemical salesman, in pressuring the grower to use his product, practically assumes the role of the "dope pusher." Once the victim, the grower, is "hooked," he becomes a steady and an ever-increasing user.
No government agency listened to McGregor.
The result of America's pesticide treadmill is that now, in 2009, honeybees and other pollinators are moving towards extinction.
In October 2006, the US National Research Council warned of the" "demonstrably downward" trends in the populations of pollinators. For the first time since 1922, American farmers are renting imported bees for their crops. They are even buying bees from Australia.
Honeybees, the National Academies report said, pollinate more than 90 crops in America, but have declined by 30 percent in the last 20 years alone. The scientists who wrote the report expressed alarm at the precipitous decline of the pollinators. Unfortunately, this made no difference to EPA, which failed to ban the microencapsulated parathion that is so deadly to honeybees.
Bee experts know that insecticides cause brain damage to the bees, disorienting them, making it often impossible for them to find their way home.
This is a consequence of decades of agribusiness warfare against nature and, in time, honeybees. In addition, beekeepers truck billions of bees all over the country for pollination, depriving them of good food, stressing them enormously, and, very possibly, injuring their health.
-------
Evaggelos Vallianatos, former EPA analyst, is the author of "This Land Is Their Land" and "The Passion of the Greeks.
Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's green-infrastructure project offers first major report online
Friday, April 10, 2009
Earth Day celebration on April 19, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie
Please click on image to ENLARGE to read details of the poster.
Bird-watchers welcome every day from dawn to dusk!
Bird-watchers welcome every day from dawn to dusk!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Article in The Morning News confirms worst signs of lack of thought behind Benton County decisions
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Ordinance To Burn Old Buildings Moves Forward
By Scarlet Sims
THE MORNING NEWS
BENTONVILLE — The Benton County Environmental Committee approved Tuesday an ordinance to set up a process for property owners to burn old structures. The proposed ordinance did not include a requested provision to allow state environmental officials the final say over burns.
The weird thing is that a high percentage of Benton County is made up of people who have come from more progressive parts of the United States to work for Walmart vendors, but they apparently don't vote in local elections or comment at Quorum Court meetings.
TMN reports:
County justices of the peace want to create an easy and affordable way for property owners to get rid of unsightly chicken houses and barns built of untreated lumber. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality wants to authorize any structure to be burned, spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
"The Department of Environmental Quality looks forward to working with Benton County officials as they develop an ordinance that complies with state regulations regarding open burning and asbestos removal," Sadler wrote in e-mail.
State law discourages open burning of yard waste, according to its Web site. The state has a regulation allowing government officials to permit fires to prevent a fire hazards, but another regulation says only the state should issue burn permits after an applicant demonstrates there are no "practicable, safe, and lawful alternative methods of disposal."
"Because it's a regulation and not a law, I don't know how they can hold us to it," said Justice of the Peace Douglas, R-Bentonville.
Creating a process to burn old buildings is meant to help residents because the county requires the cleaning of buildings that could pose a danger to children or be a fire hazard, Douglas said previously. The county approved enforcing state law at the county level in 2007. The law includes "unsightly" property.
If the county pursues an ordinance, residents would pay about $25 for a permit. That money is to cover costs for the fire marshal or his designee to inspect the building before burning for harmful chemicals or trash and again after the burn. No treated lumber can be burned.
Fire Marshal Will Hanna agreed with the process last month.
Douglas said he worried that adding the state's suggested provision would deter people from burning unsound structures. Going through the department for a permit could create a backlog and slow the process, he said.
"It just adds more red tape and more harassment," Douglas said. "People don't want to deal with ADEQ in Little Rock because most of the time (ADEQ officials) don't act like they have good sense."
Interim County Attorney George Spence said he plans to follow up with the state before bringing the burn ordinance before the Committee of 13.
In other business, the committee approved an ordinance to dispose of unclaimed and indigent dead.
END of TMN story.
The Morning News didn't have enough space to report details of the body-disposal process. Will they just dump the bodies in a chicken house and burn the place without following state regulations?
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Ordinance To Burn Old Buildings Moves Forward
By Scarlet Sims
THE MORNING NEWS
BENTONVILLE — The Benton County Environmental Committee approved Tuesday an ordinance to set up a process for property owners to burn old structures. The proposed ordinance did not include a requested provision to allow state environmental officials the final say over burns.
The weird thing is that a high percentage of Benton County is made up of people who have come from more progressive parts of the United States to work for Walmart vendors, but they apparently don't vote in local elections or comment at Quorum Court meetings.
TMN reports:
County justices of the peace want to create an easy and affordable way for property owners to get rid of unsightly chicken houses and barns built of untreated lumber. The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality wants to authorize any structure to be burned, spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
"The Department of Environmental Quality looks forward to working with Benton County officials as they develop an ordinance that complies with state regulations regarding open burning and asbestos removal," Sadler wrote in e-mail.
State law discourages open burning of yard waste, according to its Web site. The state has a regulation allowing government officials to permit fires to prevent a fire hazards, but another regulation says only the state should issue burn permits after an applicant demonstrates there are no "practicable, safe, and lawful alternative methods of disposal."
"Because it's a regulation and not a law, I don't know how they can hold us to it," said Justice of the Peace Douglas, R-Bentonville.
Creating a process to burn old buildings is meant to help residents because the county requires the cleaning of buildings that could pose a danger to children or be a fire hazard, Douglas said previously. The county approved enforcing state law at the county level in 2007. The law includes "unsightly" property.
If the county pursues an ordinance, residents would pay about $25 for a permit. That money is to cover costs for the fire marshal or his designee to inspect the building before burning for harmful chemicals or trash and again after the burn. No treated lumber can be burned.
Fire Marshal Will Hanna agreed with the process last month.
Douglas said he worried that adding the state's suggested provision would deter people from burning unsound structures. Going through the department for a permit could create a backlog and slow the process, he said.
"It just adds more red tape and more harassment," Douglas said. "People don't want to deal with ADEQ in Little Rock because most of the time (ADEQ officials) don't act like they have good sense."
Interim County Attorney George Spence said he plans to follow up with the state before bringing the burn ordinance before the Committee of 13.
In other business, the committee approved an ordinance to dispose of unclaimed and indigent dead.
END of TMN story.
The Morning News didn't have enough space to report details of the body-disposal process. Will they just dump the bodies in a chicken house and burn the place without following state regulations?
Monday, April 6, 2009
Would student apartments be more appropriate than a livestock auction barn next to National Cemetery for veterans? Not likely
Everyone is welcom at today's 5:30 p.m. meeting of Ward One residents and the Town Branch Neighborhood at the S. Hill Avenue Church of Christ near the intersection of 11th Street and S. Hill Avenue to hear and discuss a proposal to rezone the Washington County Livestock Auction Barn for student apartments. The area is shown on Google Maps below.
View Larger Map
The sale barn in the view below is at right and the national cemetery is at left. WOULD STUDENT APARTMENTS be any more appropriate next to the National Cemetery than a sale barn? The cemetery was created in 1867 and the sale barn in 1937.
View Larger Map
Please share information about the 5:30 p.m. April 5 (TODAY) meeting of Ward One residents at the Church of Christ on South Hill Avenue in Fayetteville.
Attorney Bob Estes is to present a proposal to have the Washington County Sale Barn rezoned so that student apartments may be built on the land in the Town Branch Neighborhood. If the rezoning is accepted, then a North Carolina company will buy the land and build the apartments.
The cattle-auction facility was constructed in 1937 by the grandfather of the current owner.
Cattle are brought in early each week and auctioned on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. There is no permanent housing of a large group of animals.
Because of the north slope's being well vegetated, stormwater runoff to streams in each direction is relatively clean, much cleaner than the runoff from the Hill Place Apartment complex being constructed three blocks to the west.
Closing the sale barn in south Fayetteville would greatly inconvenience ranchers and farmers in south Washington County. In fact, having to travel to Springdale to buy and sell cattle could be final factor in some landowners deciding to sell out and stop farming.
All this would come at a time when encouraging local production of food and protecting the rich soil on the prairies in the river valleys is high on the agenda of many people and many conservation organizations.
Closing the sale barn could affect the local farm economy and several other businesses in south Fayetteville that rely on local farming. It would encourage more unneeded housing to be built in rural areas while allowing more unneeded apartments to be built in a city where empty apartments and condominiums are plentiful.
Anything that damages the agricultural economy of Northwest Arkansas will reduce the effectiveness of such ongoing efforts as the FNHA's green-infrastructure project, the Beaver Lake and Illinois River watershed-protection efforts and the efforts of OMNI Center, the Sierra Club, Audubon Arkansas, the League of Women voters, the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited and many other conservation organizations to protect and improve our environment and counter the threat of global climate change.
Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday April 6, 2009
Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com
View Larger Map
The sale barn in the view below is at right and the national cemetery is at left. WOULD STUDENT APARTMENTS be any more appropriate next to the National Cemetery than a sale barn? The cemetery was created in 1867 and the sale barn in 1937.
View Larger Map
Please share information about the 5:30 p.m. April 5 (TODAY) meeting of Ward One residents at the Church of Christ on South Hill Avenue in Fayetteville.
Attorney Bob Estes is to present a proposal to have the Washington County Sale Barn rezoned so that student apartments may be built on the land in the Town Branch Neighborhood. If the rezoning is accepted, then a North Carolina company will buy the land and build the apartments.
The cattle-auction facility was constructed in 1937 by the grandfather of the current owner.
Cattle are brought in early each week and auctioned on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. There is no permanent housing of a large group of animals.
Because of the north slope's being well vegetated, stormwater runoff to streams in each direction is relatively clean, much cleaner than the runoff from the Hill Place Apartment complex being constructed three blocks to the west.
Closing the sale barn in south Fayetteville would greatly inconvenience ranchers and farmers in south Washington County. In fact, having to travel to Springdale to buy and sell cattle could be final factor in some landowners deciding to sell out and stop farming.
All this would come at a time when encouraging local production of food and protecting the rich soil on the prairies in the river valleys is high on the agenda of many people and many conservation organizations.
Closing the sale barn could affect the local farm economy and several other businesses in south Fayetteville that rely on local farming. It would encourage more unneeded housing to be built in rural areas while allowing more unneeded apartments to be built in a city where empty apartments and condominiums are plentiful.
Anything that damages the agricultural economy of Northwest Arkansas will reduce the effectiveness of such ongoing efforts as the FNHA's green-infrastructure project, the Beaver Lake and Illinois River watershed-protection efforts and the efforts of OMNI Center, the Sierra Club, Audubon Arkansas, the League of Women voters, the Ozark Society, the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited and many other conservation organizations to protect and improve our environment and counter the threat of global climate change.
Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday April 6, 2009
Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday April 6, 2009
Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com
The construction phase of this proposed project would send silty runoff to both Tanglewood Branch and the main Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River because it sits on the ridge between the two. Current runoff from that sale-barn area actually is very minimal because of the vegetated pasture land protected there for a few cattle to graze on for only two days a week.
Earth Day at World Peace Wetland Prairie from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday April 19, 2009
Members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology present the fifth-annual Earth Day celebration with activities for kids and adults. Wildflowers will be planted in the butterfly garden and peace-circle garden on the east portion of the city-owned nature park by children and adult volunteers. Ice-storm damaged limbs will be removed by those who wish to help. Volunteers may dig out fescue grass or remove Japanese honeysuckle that is suppressing native plants in parts of the western 2 acres.
Musicians and poets will be invited to play, sing or read in a pleasant outdoor setting.
Still on the Hill and Emily Kaitz are the headliners.
Several activities for youngsters will be provided by volunteers.
Parking is free from 1 to 5 p.m. at the the Hill Avenue Church of Christ south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street, and street parking is legal in much of the neighborhood.
Everyone is welcome. For details, call 444-6072
or visit http://worldpeacewetlandprairie.blogspot.com
World Peace Wetland Prairie is at 1121 South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Ward One City Council members, members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the public will hear a presentation from a developer seeking to rezone the Washington County Sale Barn property to allow construction of student apartments. Everyone is welcome to the meeting in the church at 1136 S Ellis Avenue south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 6.
For details, please call 479-444-6072 or visit http://townbranchneighborhood.blogspot.com
The construction phase of this proposed project would send silty runoff to both Tanglewood Branch and the main Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River because it sits on the ridge between the two. Current runoff from that sale-barn area actually is very minimal because of the vegetated pasture land protected there for a few cattle to graze on for only two days a week.
Earth Day at World Peace Wetland Prairie from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday April 19, 2009
Members of the Town Branch neighborhood association and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology present the fifth-annual Earth Day celebration with activities for kids and adults. Wildflowers will be planted in the butterfly garden and peace-circle garden on the east portion of the city-owned nature park by children and adult volunteers. Ice-storm damaged limbs will be removed by those who wish to help. Volunteers may dig out fescue grass or remove Japanese honeysuckle that is suppressing native plants in parts of the western 2 acres.
Musicians and poets will be invited to play, sing or read in a pleasant outdoor setting.
Still on the Hill and Emily Kaitz are the headliners.
Several activities for youngsters will be provided by volunteers.
Parking is free from 1 to 5 p.m. at the the Hill Avenue Church of Christ south of the intersection of S. Hill Avenue and Eleventh Street, and street parking is legal in much of the neighborhood.
Everyone is welcome. For details, call 444-6072
or visit http://worldpeacewetlandprairie.blogspot.com
World Peace Wetland Prairie is at 1121 South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Reagan family farm north of Arkansas 16 exemplifies the kind of land that must be protected in the cities of Northwest Arkansas to save Beaver Lake
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Bill Reagan pointing to the line of trees along the fence on the south edge of his family farm along the north edge of East Fifteenth Street.
The Reagan family has owned the land for many years and Bill said that he has bought it from his mother and will keep it in the family. The farm is prairie that has been used for cattle grazing and other agriculture over the decades. It is an example of a heritage farm of the sort identified in the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's Green Infrastructure plan. Its rich soil captures water where falls and does not cause flooding downstream with its limited stormwater runoff entering the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River without causing siltation or pollution. See Google map with view of Fifteenth Street area in a preceding post on this subject.
Democrat-Gazette on widening of Arkansas 16
View Larger Map
Please use controls and cursor to move the image, zoom in or out and trace the whole route discussed at the meeting yesterday. The Reagan property is near the middle left part of the image above.
If you use your cursor to travel north of the open Reagan property between Washington Avenue and Wood Avenue from 11th Street up to near 9th Street you can see the 7 wooded wetland acres that the Partners for Better housing board is trying to buy to dredge and fill for a low-income housing development. Water drains from north of Jefferson School, all the way from north of MLK Boulevard (former 6th St.) down to 15th St. and into the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River and is slowed and purified by the moist-soil area where the tiny branch overflows.
This portion of the Beaver Lake watershed is under extreme threat. Thanks to the Reagan family and others for keeping a bit of green infrastructure intact and allowing a small part of the rainwater to stay it falls.
The Reagan family has owned the land for many years and Bill said that he has bought it from his mother and will keep it in the family. The farm is prairie that has been used for cattle grazing and other agriculture over the decades. It is an example of a heritage farm of the sort identified in the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association's Green Infrastructure plan. Its rich soil captures water where falls and does not cause flooding downstream with its limited stormwater runoff entering the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River without causing siltation or pollution. See Google map with view of Fifteenth Street area in a preceding post on this subject.
Democrat-Gazette on widening of Arkansas 16
View Larger Map
Please use controls and cursor to move the image, zoom in or out and trace the whole route discussed at the meeting yesterday. The Reagan property is near the middle left part of the image above.
If you use your cursor to travel north of the open Reagan property between Washington Avenue and Wood Avenue from 11th Street up to near 9th Street you can see the 7 wooded wetland acres that the Partners for Better housing board is trying to buy to dredge and fill for a low-income housing development. Water drains from north of Jefferson School, all the way from north of MLK Boulevard (former 6th St.) down to 15th St. and into the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River and is slowed and purified by the moist-soil area where the tiny branch overflows.
This portion of the Beaver Lake watershed is under extreme threat. Thanks to the Reagan family and others for keeping a bit of green infrastructure intact and allowing a small part of the rainwater to stay it falls.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Public invited to view plan for widening portions of Huntsville Road and Fifteenth Street from 4 to 7 p.m. today
People interested in protecting Northwest Arkansas' two major watersheds, in this case, the watershed of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River and Beaver Lake, need to turn out and make sure that the planners are taking into account the potential affect of this project on water quality and the need for stormwater retention to avoid increasing the flooding and erosion threat downstream.
View Larger Map
Please use controls and cursor to move the image, zoom in or out and trace the whole route to be discussed this afternoon.
Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department officials will reveal the first phase of design for widening a 2.7-mile stretch of Arkansas 16 between S. College Avenue and Stonebridge Road to four lanes and installing a traffic light at the Stonebridge intersection, east of Crossover Road from 4 to 7 p.m. in the activity center of Fayetteville First Assembly of God at 550 E. 15th St. There won't be a presentation; residents can look at displays, ask questions and give feedback verbally or on survey forms, The Northwest Arkansas Times reported in its March 31, 2009, edition.
View Larger Map
Please use controls and cursor to move the image, zoom in or out and trace the whole route to be discussed this afternoon.
Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department officials will reveal the first phase of design for widening a 2.7-mile stretch of Arkansas 16 between S. College Avenue and Stonebridge Road to four lanes and installing a traffic light at the Stonebridge intersection, east of Crossover Road from 4 to 7 p.m. in the activity center of Fayetteville First Assembly of God at 550 E. 15th St. There won't be a presentation; residents can look at displays, ask questions and give feedback verbally or on survey forms, The Northwest Arkansas Times reported in its March 31, 2009, edition.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Caring for Creation Conference a great success
United Methodist Church not the only demonination concerned about the environment. For examples, see a brief online Bibliography of Christian Environmentalism
Please click on images to enlarge of some of the tenets of the United Methodist Church in relation to global climate change.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of one of the slides in the presentation with a quote from the one whose commands mean the most:
Please click on images to enlarge of some of the tenets of the United Methodist Church in relation to global climate change.
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of one of the slides in the presentation with a quote from the one whose commands mean the most:
Friday, March 27, 2009
Severed limb budding at end. Birds and squirrels and rabbits may eat them
Here is the caption with the photo of limbs burning in Benton County:
Up in smoke:
Benton County employee Harvey Johnson watched a fire at 10791 Stoney Point Road near Lowell on Thursday. The county is burning limbs and trees broken by this winter’s ice storm. Other burn sites are at 9900 Marchant Road in Elm Springs, 21447 Waukesha Road in Siloam Springs and 19941 Bettis Hill Road near War Eagle. Washington County is also burning ice-storm debris on North 40th Street in Springdale. DAVID FRANK DEMPSEY / Benton County Daily Record
If no one in either county had a fireplace or a wood stove, this might seem slightly less ridiculous.
I hope a lot of people who can use firewood or who would collect it and sell it will be at those sites before more is burned and load it up and take it away.
This wood would save people money, reduce air pollution now and save the carbon in these limbs for actual home heating and reduce global climate change (because people with wood stoves and fire places will be buying wood next fall and reducing the tree cover even more in Northwest Arkansas).
Additionally, birds and squirrels are eating buds on those limbs where they are lying. In fact, many large limbs or trunks lying separated from the main trunk for nearly two months are budding right now! So wildlife are having to search a bit more for food, which may be tough for birds facing nesting season.
Burning material with this much value is WRONG.
It is even worse than chipping it all. This is incredibly wasteful and inconsiderate of people and other living things. I am proud to live in Fayetteville where an effort is being made to separate potential firewood for sharing and where the rest is being chipped rather than burned.
This is an example of the need for cross-training and keeping all environmental enforcement under one big umbrella. Apparently, it would be the responsibility of the EPA to see that FEMA's requirements for subsidizing "cleanup" efforts meet environmental guidelines. But I would bet that the EPA has had no input in the cleanup efforts. Otherwise, they would have required sound environmental use of the downed trees and limbs.
And, if there were any budgetary control of FEMA, their pet contractors would be required to compact and compress the loads of loose limbs in their trailers and trucks before claiming a load is full and counting it on the basis of cubic yards.
If you take waste metal to a steel yard or aluminum-recycling facility, you will have your vehicle weighed and then weighed again after the workers pull off what can be recycled. They don't pay more for half-empty truckloads or uncrushed cans that fill a big bag. The scales tell the story.
Should the taxpayers support a system that rewards only selected contractors and ignores the value of the material being destroyed in the pretense of "cleaning up" after a disaster? And requires the hiring of "inspectors" or whatever from different pet companies to make sure the trucks aren't overfilled?
My questions aren't original. I have heard these questions from residents of Fayetteville who are offended by the appearance of poor management and waste.
The city can't ask these questions because the EPA MIGHT look into the problem and FEMA MIGHT delay reimbursement of the city for the work that took a big chunk out of the city's reserve fund.
But somebody has to ask why they don't just weigh the loads and pay and reimburse on the results. My neighbors have asked.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Group meets today in Springdale to focus on draft of management plan for watershed of Beaver Lake
Mike Malone wrote:
This is a reminder about the Wednesday, March 25, focus group meeting with Tetratech to discuss the status of the Beaver Lake Watershed Management Plan that they have been helping facilitate. This follow-up focus group meeting with conservation and recreational representatives will take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 3 pm in the Chicago Room (room 220) of the Jones Center for Families in Springdale. They want to gather feedback on some of the management options that they have been developing for the watershed.
Mike Malone
387-5590
This is a reminder about the Wednesday, March 25, focus group meeting with Tetratech to discuss the status of the Beaver Lake Watershed Management Plan that they have been helping facilitate. This follow-up focus group meeting with conservation and recreational representatives will take place on Wednesday, March 25 at 3 pm in the Chicago Room (room 220) of the Jones Center for Families in Springdale. They want to gather feedback on some of the management options that they have been developing for the watershed.
Mike Malone
387-5590
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Focus group to discuss plan for Beaver Lake
On Wednesday, March 25th, you are invited to a focus group meeting with Tetratech to discuss the status of the Beaver Lake Watershed Management Plan that they have been helping facilitate. This follow-up focus group meeting with conservation and environmental representatives will take place on Wednesday, March 25th at 3pm in the Chicago Room (room #220) at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale. They want to gather your feedback on some of the management options that they have been developing for the watershed.
I believe each of you participated in the first focus group meeting Tetratech convened a few months back. If you have suggestions for other folks who should be included in this focus group, please let me know or pass this invitation along to them.
Tetratech has put together a series of newsletters to update you and other focus group members on the status of the project. I will distribute some of the newsletters attached to this message and others attached to another message early next week.
Please let me know if you have any questions and whether you will be able to attend the meeting on Wednesday, March 25th at 3pm.
Thank you!
Mike Malone
387-5590 (cell)
I believe each of you participated in the first focus group meeting Tetratech convened a few months back. If you have suggestions for other folks who should be included in this focus group, please let me know or pass this invitation along to them.
Tetratech has put together a series of newsletters to update you and other focus group members on the status of the project. I will distribute some of the newsletters attached to this message and others attached to another message early next week.
Please let me know if you have any questions and whether you will be able to attend the meeting on Wednesday, March 25th at 3pm.
Thank you!
Mike Malone
387-5590 (cell)
Friday, March 6, 2009
Butterflies showing up on World Peace Wetland Prairie on March 6, 2009, before time for wildflowers to bloom in northwest Arkansas
Please click on images to ENLARGE view from different angles of orange butterfly on World Peace Wetland Prairie on March 6,2008.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says Oklahoma claims that Arkansas pollution has damaged scenic Illinois River to the tune of more than $600 million
Privit-berry bandits remain at World Peace Wetland Prairie
Please click on images to Enlarge view of cedar waxwing enjoying privit berries on March 5, 2009, at World Peace Wetland Prairie in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Obama Restoring Endangered Species Act Provision.
Obama Restoring Endangered Species Act Provision
Tuesday 03 March 2009
»
by: Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
In an address to the employees of the Department of Interior, President Barack Obama moved to restore the Endangered Species Act. (Photo: Getty Images)
Today President Obama will restore rules requiring U.S. agencies consult with independent federal experts to determine if their actions might harm threatened and endangered species, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified, marking yet another reversal of President Bush's environmental legacy.
In December 2008, the Bush administration changed a longstanding practice under the Endangered Species Act by issuing rules that allowed agencies to move ahead with projects and programs without seeking an independent review by either the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Environmentalists and scientists said this shift could allow agencies to press ahead with plans that could hurt already-vulnerable species across the country.
Today Obama will issue a presidential memorandum, an administration official said, that will direct departments to yet again consult with the two agencies on decisions that could affect imperiled plants and animals "while the Interior and Commerce Departments review the Bush rulemaking."
The move, the official said, "will restore the status quo ante and allow the Interior and Commerce Departments to determine whether a new rule should be promulgated that will again codify the longstanding consultation practice under the" Endangered Species Act.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.V.), who had decried the Bush rule and had been trying to reverse it through the legislative process, hailed Obama's decision.
"I wholeheartedly support the president's proposal to restore the protections for endangered species that the Bush administration spent so many years trying to undermine," Rahall said in an interview. "It is one more indication that the new administration truly represents change for the better and is committed to the protection of our natural resources and our environment. I think we know who would have been the winner in this fox guarding the hen house scenario advanced by the Bush administration, and it would not be the hens."
Obama is scheduled to visit the Interior Department this afternoon, to commemorate the agency's 160th anniversary.
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the memorandum would have a tremendous impact.
"Endangered species are breathing a deep sigh of relief today," Suckling said. "The consultation process is the heart of the Endangered Species Act power. By reversing Bush's attempt to deregulate the consultation process, Obama restored oversight and balance and has given endangered species a good fighting chance of survival."
»
IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. TRUTHOUT HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS TRUTHOUT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.
"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.
COMMENTS
This is a moderated forum. It may take a little while for comments to go live.
Change I can believe in!
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 01:01 — Uppity Woman (not verified)
Change I can believe in! This is one of the reasons I voted for you Mr. President!
Hopefully this will stop
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 00:41 — troutprof (not verified)
Hopefully this will stop Idaho FWP from killing 100 of the 140 wolves in the Selway Mountains in the name of maximixing elk herds.
Now if there were just some
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 00:08 — Tom Camfield (not verified)
Now if there were just some way to toughen the penalties for the everyday instances of cruelty to animals, mostly domesticated--starved horses, dogs tied up and abandoned or left locked in abandoned homes, puppy mills . . . We need something more like "an eye for an eye" meted out by our justice system.
Tuesday 03 March 2009
»
by: Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
In an address to the employees of the Department of Interior, President Barack Obama moved to restore the Endangered Species Act. (Photo: Getty Images)
Today President Obama will restore rules requiring U.S. agencies consult with independent federal experts to determine if their actions might harm threatened and endangered species, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified, marking yet another reversal of President Bush's environmental legacy.
In December 2008, the Bush administration changed a longstanding practice under the Endangered Species Act by issuing rules that allowed agencies to move ahead with projects and programs without seeking an independent review by either the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Environmentalists and scientists said this shift could allow agencies to press ahead with plans that could hurt already-vulnerable species across the country.
Today Obama will issue a presidential memorandum, an administration official said, that will direct departments to yet again consult with the two agencies on decisions that could affect imperiled plants and animals "while the Interior and Commerce Departments review the Bush rulemaking."
The move, the official said, "will restore the status quo ante and allow the Interior and Commerce Departments to determine whether a new rule should be promulgated that will again codify the longstanding consultation practice under the" Endangered Species Act.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-W.V.), who had decried the Bush rule and had been trying to reverse it through the legislative process, hailed Obama's decision.
"I wholeheartedly support the president's proposal to restore the protections for endangered species that the Bush administration spent so many years trying to undermine," Rahall said in an interview. "It is one more indication that the new administration truly represents change for the better and is committed to the protection of our natural resources and our environment. I think we know who would have been the winner in this fox guarding the hen house scenario advanced by the Bush administration, and it would not be the hens."
Obama is scheduled to visit the Interior Department this afternoon, to commemorate the agency's 160th anniversary.
Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the memorandum would have a tremendous impact.
"Endangered species are breathing a deep sigh of relief today," Suckling said. "The consultation process is the heart of the Endangered Species Act power. By reversing Bush's attempt to deregulate the consultation process, Obama restored oversight and balance and has given endangered species a good fighting chance of survival."
»
IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. TRUTHOUT HAS NO AFFILIATION WHATSOEVER WITH THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS ARTICLE NOR IS TRUTHOUT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATOR.
"VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE VERSIONS POSTED ON TO MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN CLICKING THE "VIEW SOURCE ARTICLE" LINKS.
COMMENTS
This is a moderated forum. It may take a little while for comments to go live.
Change I can believe in!
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 01:01 — Uppity Woman (not verified)
Change I can believe in! This is one of the reasons I voted for you Mr. President!
Hopefully this will stop
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 00:41 — troutprof (not verified)
Hopefully this will stop Idaho FWP from killing 100 of the 140 wolves in the Selway Mountains in the name of maximixing elk herds.
Now if there were just some
Wed, 03/04/2009 - 00:08 — Tom Camfield (not verified)
Now if there were just some way to toughen the penalties for the everyday instances of cruelty to animals, mostly domesticated--starved horses, dogs tied up and abandoned or left locked in abandoned homes, puppy mills . . . We need something more like "an eye for an eye" meted out by our justice system.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Stream riparian zones, wetland bill clears committee
Please click on images to view a relatively natural rural riparian zone on a snowing day in 2009 and a contrasting urban riparian zone that has been almost completely paved over with a silt fence that has failed even to protect the very edge of the stream.
Doug Thompson report on stream-preservation bill in The Morning News
Larry Woodall suggests that, "If you don't read the bill keep in mind Doug has a mistake in his column. There's a total of up to
$50,000 state income tax credit for riparian stream preservation per project. You can take up to $5,000 per year Ark
Income Tax credit for doing it. Then you may carryover the balance and get credits for
up to nine years. Those are it's major provisions. Now on to the senate."
Larry
Joe Neal provides report on workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe Neal's report on February 28, 2009, workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not "woodland township"!
I wasn't there to make photos of the work of the volunteers onsite but chose some photos from a short distance downstream to illustrate what is happening far too rapidly to such land as that on the Audubon property. Joe and the volunteers were trying to restore and maintain the historic character of the land while developers have been trying to turn it all into sterile subdivisions.
Downstream from Wilson Spring along Clabber Creek developments have been planned and approved on much of the wetland prairie but, mercifully, the economic situation has brought a hiatus to construction. In the photos, one can see a wetland-mitigation sign in the riparian zone of the Clabber Creek and a developer's sign touting the nearby Audubon property as a selling point for lots to be built on fill dirt placed in the wetland. The pause in construction and the necessity of new owners going to the Fayetteville Planning Commission with new plans offers a chance to protect more of the valuable fertile and natural water-retaining soil by requiring homes to be built on piers rather than red-dirt and concrete foundations and making many changes for the good of all. As it exists now, this is area can easily meet the prime flood-prevention rule of "keeping the water where it falls."
Joe Neal's report on February 28, 2009, workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not woodland township!
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not "woodland township"!
I wasn't there to make photos of the work of the volunteers onsite but chose some photos from a short distance downstream to illustrate what is happening far too rapidly to such land as that on the Audubon property. Joe and the volunteers were trying to restore and maintain the historic character of the land while developers have been trying to turn it all into sterile subdivisions.
Downstream from Wilson Spring along Clabber Creek developments have been planned and approved on much of the wetland prairie but, mercifully, the economic situation has brought a hiatus to construction. In the photos, one can see a wetland-mitigation sign in the riparian zone of the Clabber Creek and a developer's sign touting the nearby Audubon property as a selling point for lots to be built on fill dirt placed in the wetland. The pause in construction and the necessity of new owners going to the Fayetteville Planning Commission with new plans offers a chance to protect more of the valuable fertile and natural water-retaining soil by requiring homes to be built on piers rather than red-dirt and concrete foundations and making many changes for the good of all. As it exists now, this is area can easily meet the prime flood-prevention rule of "keeping the water where it falls."
Joe Neal's report on February 28, 2009, workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not woodland township!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Lowest wetland portion of Hill Place (former Aspen Ridge) property being dredged and filled for parking lot in former overflow area of Town Branch
Please click on images to ENLARGE photos of dredging and filling of Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River west of South Hill Avenue and north of 11th Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on February 26, 2009. Rich, absorbent soil being hauled away to make space for truckloads of non-absorbent, non-organic red dirt to provide parking spaces for Hill Place student apartments.
Don't let the contractors take all your brushpiles; the birds won't forgive you
Please click on image to ENLARGE view of mockingbird on brushpile at World Peace Wetland Prairie on February 25, 2009,
The more buds you spot on the ends of small limbs the more likely these limbs are the ones to keep on your property if you want plenty of song birds to be in your neighborhood when spring comes. You might also try to convince your neighbors to preserve some similar brushpiles on their property. And urging neighbors to preserve ice-damaged trees on their property also will help.
Many won't understand. But every property owner who keeps a brush pile or resists pressure to cut down a damaged tree can make a difference in the reproductive success of song birds in the coming spring.
The more buds you spot on the ends of small limbs the more likely these limbs are the ones to keep on your property if you want plenty of song birds to be in your neighborhood when spring comes. You might also try to convince your neighbors to preserve some similar brushpiles on their property. And urging neighbors to preserve ice-damaged trees on their property also will help.
Many won't understand. But every property owner who keeps a brush pile or resists pressure to cut down a damaged tree can make a difference in the reproductive success of song birds in the coming spring.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Joyce Hale pushing major legislation into legislative mix to protect wetland and riparian zones in Arkansas
Please click on image of stream-bed dredging and adjacent riparian-zone damage. The bill in the Arkansas General Assembly described below has a chance of preventing such madness.
Dear Friends,
Most of you know that I have been spending the better part of the last two years in an effort to preserve water and land resources in Arkansas with state tax credit incentives enjoyed by twelve other states. It has been a long road to today, but I am proud to announce that HB1577 was birthed shortly after noon today and is ready to run the legislative gauntlet on its way to passage. http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/R/Bills/HB1577.pdf. You may or may not be interested in reading all that is attached, but I just wanted you know that this small demonstration project has a chance of showing how important it is to protect Arkansas's water quality. The original bill that is being amended, would only offer credits to repair damaged wetlands and riparian areas. This amendment provides tax credits to landowners for protecting quality wetlands and riparian areas before they are damaged by development. If you are an Arkansan and inclined to speak positively about this to your state representative, I would be grateful for your support. These are challenging times economically and ecologically. This small program is only a first step to bring a full fledged conservation tax credit program to life. If it goes well, we will move to Plan B for something with real conservation potential. There is much to protect and your support might be just the amount to tip the balance in the final vote.
Regards,
Joyce Hale
HB-1577 – CREATION OF A CONSERVATION EASEMENT PROGRAM AND TAX CREDIT
WHAT THE BILL DOES: Creates a new conservation easement program within the existing Wetland and Riparian Zones Tax Credit Program (Section 26-51-1501) under the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission; and establishes a new state income tax credit which can be granted under certain conditions to Arkansas landowners who voluntarily set aside land for the protection and enhancement of the water quality of our streams, rivers and lakes.
KEY POINTS:
• Stream Bank Protection Works: It’s well known that setting aside land along our streams, rivers and lakes for the restoration of natural ground cover helps reduce erosion, sedimentation run-off, and stream-bank deterioration, thereby improving water quality. In addition, wetland and riparian zones provide habitats for fish and wildlife; help groundwater recharge; provide more opportunities for hunting, fishing and hiking; and encourage the restoration of timber and grasslands. We believe protecting the quality of Arkansas waters is crucial to maintaining and enhancing the quality of life for all Arkansans.
• Existing Law: Currently, ANRC’s Wetland and Riparian Zone Creation and Restoration Tax Credit allows landowners to claim a tax credit for 100% of the costs associated with creating or restoring a wetland and/or riparian area – presuming they maintain the area for at least 10 years.
• What’s Proposed: Under this bill, landowners wishing to donate a wetland or riparian area conservation easement or full real property interest would be able to apply for a state income tax credit of up to 50% of the fair market value (but no more than $50,000) of the wetland and riparian land they donate to a land trust or governmental entity in perpetuity. We’ve named this a “Wetland and Riparian Zone Conservation Tax Credit”.
• Caps on Tax Credits: The draft legislation would make any approved conservation tax credit donation subject to the same $5,000 annual tax credit cap for each donation and the same 9 year carryover that currently applies to the existing Wetland and Riparian Zone Creation and Restoration Tax Credit program. Both the proposed and existing tax credits are non-transferable and limited to the existing $500,000 programmatic cap.
• No General Revenue Impact: DF&A says that the proposed conservation tax credit program has NO fiscal impact to the state since it uses existing and under-utilized funding within the existing ANRC budget.
• Who Approves? Conservation tax credit applications would be reviewed by the same Committee that reviews ANRC’s current program, with approval by the Natural Resources Commission. Members of the Committee are the directors of the Forestry Commission, the Game and Fish Commission, the Department of Finance & Administration, the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and the Department of Environmental Quality, along with two members with expertise in wetlands and riparian zone ecology appointed by the Commission.
• Cost Effective: We believe the cost of protection will be much less than the cost of fixing the problem. Cleaning up dirty water, and restoring eroded stream banks is expensive. Building a natural system to protect water quality helps our environment and our economy, and it’s a cost effective use of taxpayer dollars.
• Access to Federal Tax Deductions: The proposed legislation includes language that meets IRS criteria for accessing federal income tax deductions for the granting of conservation easements or full real property interests.
• Oversight and Accountability: Valuation of the donation is determined by strict professional appraisal standards; stacking of tax credits is prohibited; ANRC sets the rules and keeps the records to ensure performance; DF&A would review to prevent abuse, and DF&A will report the total cumulative use of the tax credits.
Dear Friends,
Most of you know that I have been spending the better part of the last two years in an effort to preserve water and land resources in Arkansas with state tax credit incentives enjoyed by twelve other states. It has been a long road to today, but I am proud to announce that HB1577 was birthed shortly after noon today and is ready to run the legislative gauntlet on its way to passage. http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/R/Bills/HB1577.pdf. You may or may not be interested in reading all that is attached, but I just wanted you know that this small demonstration project has a chance of showing how important it is to protect Arkansas's water quality. The original bill that is being amended, would only offer credits to repair damaged wetlands and riparian areas. This amendment provides tax credits to landowners for protecting quality wetlands and riparian areas before they are damaged by development. If you are an Arkansan and inclined to speak positively about this to your state representative, I would be grateful for your support. These are challenging times economically and ecologically. This small program is only a first step to bring a full fledged conservation tax credit program to life. If it goes well, we will move to Plan B for something with real conservation potential. There is much to protect and your support might be just the amount to tip the balance in the final vote.
Regards,
Joyce Hale
HB-1577 – CREATION OF A CONSERVATION EASEMENT PROGRAM AND TAX CREDIT
WHAT THE BILL DOES: Creates a new conservation easement program within the existing Wetland and Riparian Zones Tax Credit Program (Section 26-51-1501) under the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission; and establishes a new state income tax credit which can be granted under certain conditions to Arkansas landowners who voluntarily set aside land for the protection and enhancement of the water quality of our streams, rivers and lakes.
KEY POINTS:
• Stream Bank Protection Works: It’s well known that setting aside land along our streams, rivers and lakes for the restoration of natural ground cover helps reduce erosion, sedimentation run-off, and stream-bank deterioration, thereby improving water quality. In addition, wetland and riparian zones provide habitats for fish and wildlife; help groundwater recharge; provide more opportunities for hunting, fishing and hiking; and encourage the restoration of timber and grasslands. We believe protecting the quality of Arkansas waters is crucial to maintaining and enhancing the quality of life for all Arkansans.
• Existing Law: Currently, ANRC’s Wetland and Riparian Zone Creation and Restoration Tax Credit allows landowners to claim a tax credit for 100% of the costs associated with creating or restoring a wetland and/or riparian area – presuming they maintain the area for at least 10 years.
• What’s Proposed: Under this bill, landowners wishing to donate a wetland or riparian area conservation easement or full real property interest would be able to apply for a state income tax credit of up to 50% of the fair market value (but no more than $50,000) of the wetland and riparian land they donate to a land trust or governmental entity in perpetuity. We’ve named this a “Wetland and Riparian Zone Conservation Tax Credit”.
• Caps on Tax Credits: The draft legislation would make any approved conservation tax credit donation subject to the same $5,000 annual tax credit cap for each donation and the same 9 year carryover that currently applies to the existing Wetland and Riparian Zone Creation and Restoration Tax Credit program. Both the proposed and existing tax credits are non-transferable and limited to the existing $500,000 programmatic cap.
• No General Revenue Impact: DF&A says that the proposed conservation tax credit program has NO fiscal impact to the state since it uses existing and under-utilized funding within the existing ANRC budget.
• Who Approves? Conservation tax credit applications would be reviewed by the same Committee that reviews ANRC’s current program, with approval by the Natural Resources Commission. Members of the Committee are the directors of the Forestry Commission, the Game and Fish Commission, the Department of Finance & Administration, the Department of Arkansas Heritage, and the Department of Environmental Quality, along with two members with expertise in wetlands and riparian zone ecology appointed by the Commission.
• Cost Effective: We believe the cost of protection will be much less than the cost of fixing the problem. Cleaning up dirty water, and restoring eroded stream banks is expensive. Building a natural system to protect water quality helps our environment and our economy, and it’s a cost effective use of taxpayer dollars.
• Access to Federal Tax Deductions: The proposed legislation includes language that meets IRS criteria for accessing federal income tax deductions for the granting of conservation easements or full real property interests.
• Oversight and Accountability: Valuation of the donation is determined by strict professional appraisal standards; stacking of tax credits is prohibited; ANRC sets the rules and keeps the records to ensure performance; DF&A would review to prevent abuse, and DF&A will report the total cumulative use of the tax credits.
Sierra Club to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 24, 2009, for presentation on environmental bills in legislature
The Ozark Headwaters Group of the Sierra Club will be meeting
tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 24th, at 7 pm at U.S. Pizza Company on Dixon
Street in Fayetteville. The Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks has a fun
and informative presentation planned. Also Bill Kopsky of the Arkansas
Public Policy Panel will be discussing the environmental bills that
will be coming before the Arkansas Legislature this year and the
upcoming rally day at the Capitol building. You do not have to be a
member to attend!
For more information contact Molly at mollyrawn@gmail.com or at 479 527 9499
tomorrow, Tuesday Feb. 24th, at 7 pm at U.S. Pizza Company on Dixon
Street in Fayetteville. The Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks has a fun
and informative presentation planned. Also Bill Kopsky of the Arkansas
Public Policy Panel will be discussing the environmental bills that
will be coming before the Arkansas Legislature this year and the
upcoming rally day at the Capitol building. You do not have to be a
member to attend!
For more information contact Molly at mollyrawn@gmail.com or at 479 527 9499
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Daffodils approaching peak bloom in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Feb. 21, 2009
Please click on image to enlarge view of daffodil on February 21, 2009, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Caring for Creation Conference set for March 27-29 in Fayetteville, Arkansas
March 27-29, 2009, Mount Sequoyah is holding the second annual Caring for Creation Conference in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The conference will make people aware of environmental issues and offer creative solutions, and will also help them recognize how to fulfill their responsibilities for stewardship of the environment in their churches and communities.
The keynote speaker will be, Ray C. Anderson, Founder and Chairman of Interface, Inc. Ray is a sought-after international speaker who gives nearly 100 talks each year to audiences hungry for a message about the company that is proving the business model for sustainability works. “Ray Anderson is an incredibly hope-filled business person” states Pat Watkins, a workshop leader from Richmond, VA.
Leaders from Interfaith Power and Light, the Creation Care Movement, and other professionals will lead twelve different workshops and discussions with topics covering a wide variety of environmental issues such as Going Green from the Ground Up, The Ethic of Sustainability, Growing Food and Neighborhoods in Community Gardens, and Consumerism, How to Link Consumer Habits with Our Faith Journey.
Early discounted registration deadline is March 7. For more information call 800-760-8126, email programs@mountsequoyah.org, or go to www.mountsequoyah.org and click on events.
Marilyn Braswell
Mount Sequoyah Conference & Retreat Center
150 N. W. Skyline Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72701
479-443-4531or 800-760-8126
programs@mountsequoyah.org
The keynote speaker will be, Ray C. Anderson, Founder and Chairman of Interface, Inc. Ray is a sought-after international speaker who gives nearly 100 talks each year to audiences hungry for a message about the company that is proving the business model for sustainability works. “Ray Anderson is an incredibly hope-filled business person” states Pat Watkins, a workshop leader from Richmond, VA.
Leaders from Interfaith Power and Light, the Creation Care Movement, and other professionals will lead twelve different workshops and discussions with topics covering a wide variety of environmental issues such as Going Green from the Ground Up, The Ethic of Sustainability, Growing Food and Neighborhoods in Community Gardens, and Consumerism, How to Link Consumer Habits with Our Faith Journey.
Early discounted registration deadline is March 7. For more information call 800-760-8126, email programs@mountsequoyah.org, or go to www.mountsequoyah.org and click on events.
Marilyn Braswell
Mount Sequoyah Conference & Retreat Center
150 N. W. Skyline Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72701
479-443-4531or 800-760-8126
programs@mountsequoyah.org
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Another wasted resource: Oiling goose eggs about as foolish an idea as one can imagine
The best thing would be for Bella Vista residents to learn to value and enjoy having wildlife around. But, if the lack of understanding of nature and natural resources can't be overcome, then there is an accepted and humane and sustainable way to deal with the perceived overpopulation of Canada geese on Bella Vista Lakes:
Eat the eggs. Forget the oiling. Think about that on your next visit to egg counter at the grocery store. A dozen goose eggs is equivalent to more than two dozen extra-large chicken eggs and the flavor is at least as good!
Actually getting close enough to a pair of geese to rob the nest likely will give a person a lot more respect for the geese, which not only do not abort their young but will fight to protect them and mate for life!
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/02/17/news/021809bzgeese.txt
The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas
Group To Oil Goose Eggs
By Anna Fry
THE MORNING NEWS
BELLA VISTA -- The Bella Vista Property Owners Association will start oiling Canada goose eggs this year in an attempt to slow population growth, the association's general manager said.
GeesePeace, a nonprofit group that promotes nonlethal methods to control problem goose populations, visited the community last fall. Representatives provided a suggested plan that included egg oiling and chasing the geese with a border collie. The feces of Bella Vista's estimated 1,000 resident geese fouls lakes and golf courses.
Oiling means coating eggs with corn oil to seal pores so oxygen can't get in and biological processes stop. That's only done to eggs in which the embryos haven't developed lungs.
Association officials hope to set up a volunteer program where a team adopts a designated area, Bailey said. People who spot goose nests could report them to team members. The members could map the nests and later oil them.
Egg oiling is the best way to stop reproduction, said Darrell Bowman, the association'