$120 Million For Water Projects To Help With Conservation

Conservation work involving water has been around for nearly 70 years in Arkansas, but a relatively new program is hoping to help with water quality, quantity and habitat, a state conservationist said Thursday.

Michael Sullivan said farmers and landowners can participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watershed Initiative, which has been around since 2010.

The USDA program will work with nine projects in Arkansas in 2015. They include:

• Middle Cache River Project – parts of Craighead, Jackson, Poinsett and Woodruff counties.
• Lower Arkansas (Upper) – parts of Jefferson, Lonoke and Pulaski counties.
• Grand Prairie Watershed – parts of Arkansas, Lonoke, Prairie and Monroe counties.
• East Arkansas Enterprise Community, Inc., L’Anguille River – parts of Cross and St. Francis counties.
• Big Watershed – a part of Phillips County.
• Bayou Meto (Middle) – parts of Arkansas, Lonoke, Prairie and Jefferson counties.
• Bayou Meto (Arkansas County) – parts of Arkansas, Jefferson and Lonoke counties.
• Tyronza River Watershed – parts of Mississippi and Poinsett counties.
• Wapanocca Lake Watershed – part of Crittenden County.

THE NEED
Sullivan said conservation projects have helped to make good progress with the state’s rivers and streams.

The program, which is voluntary, has typically brought about $340 million in funding to a 13-state area to help with conservation.

Of the $340 million, nearly a third ($120 million) has gone to projects in Arkansas, Sullivan said.

“It is a very competitive process,” Sullivan said of the application process.

Sullivan noted that the amount of money for Arkansas projects has been indicative of the success that farmers have had.

“The objective is with water quality, water fowl and water quantity concerns,” Sullivan said.

Tom Fortner, a farmer in Lonoke County, said the program has helped reduce nutrient runoff in rivers as well as building reservoir and pipelines for water quantity.

Fortner said the pipes help in both water quality and quantity, by helping to keep nutrients, fertilizers and settlements in fields.

Keith Forrester of Whitton, whose family farms on 200 acres near the Tyronza River, said he believes farmers in the river basin would be interested in the program.

“They would want to look at it, but I think they would like to know more first,” Forrester said.

Forrester said a similar conservation program – to grow trees along farmland – started several years ago and has seen an added benefit as well.

“The Tyronza River has been a thoroughfare with white-tail deer. They have not been seen there since the 1940s,” Forrester said. “But you see them now.”

The area has also seen an influx of bald eagles, Forrester noted.

Forrester said the area was once home to deer, bobcats and red foxes and that farmers in the area support conservation and wildlife.

“They have a keen awareness of wildlife restoration,” Forrester said.

As for water, Forrester said farmers have used new technology including iPhones and updated weather forecasts to help with conservation efforts.

“It has pretty much taken the guesswork out of it,” Forrester said.

The farmers and landowners have until Jan. 16 to apply for the program.

Sullivan said people who live in the counties mentioned above who are interested in the program can go to their local USDA office to apply.