Friday, February 29, 2008

Environmental organization of the year cooked pancake breakfast March 1, 2008


PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

This Saturday Morning TODAY
March 1st, 2008
8:30 - 11am

Only $5!

At United Campus Ministries
902 W. Maple (corner of Storer and Maple), in Fayetteville

A fund-raiser at The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology for its Carbon Caps Task Force.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Not a great day for "so-called" controlled burn

July 17, 2007, photo of butterfly on buttonbush on World Peace Wetland Prairie.

Buttonbush in bloom on World Peace Wetland Prairie in 2007

PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.
Buttonbush button past prime bloom on World Peace Wetland Prairie in 2007

Button bush root uncovered in process of digging out fescue shows how roots of many native prairie plants survive mowing and burning and regenerate new stems in all directions but succeed best in the wettest areas. These natives may be found on the edge of ditches created by dredging slow-moving lowland streams, still trying to survive and succeeding where allowed to flourish.

The wind has been too strong this morning for outdoor burning of any kind.


Prairie fire planned at Westside treatment plant"


Although burning prairies and even woodland for management purposes is a commonly used tool of land managers, the people advocating the process seldom address the risks.
It is as though the ideal of bringing back a native-plant community on the land is considered by these specialists as more of a worldwide emergency than reducing the carbon load in our atmosphere.
Encouraging native species is one of my own goals. However, the process can be done without releasing more carbon dioxide.
The right tool is the hand tool. The right fuel for prairie "restoration" is the food the people who do the labor consume.

Interesting that our city's new goal of becoming a major "sustainability center" would allow for a quick-fix approach to prairie restoration.

The city, however, should be encouraging everyone to plant native species in the city. Landscaping required in new developments should be all-native with selections made to fit soil type and location and a natural look. Invasive non-native species should be forbidden.

Our wonderful botanical garden is an area where specimen plants of all sorts are available for educational purposes. But many require careful tending to survive in our area and many must be controlled to avoid spreading them.

Sustainablity is much easier to achieve where native species are prevalent. They survive the droughts and flourish when there is rain. But using machinery and fire to remove the non-native invasives such as fescue runs counter to the goals of protecting our air and water and soil. And existing native fauna can't all fly away as the birds do. Box turtles and beneficial native insects and countless other living things dependant on a specific area don't just run away and find equivalent habitat. Land of every sort has its identifiable carrying capacity for various species.

Because the land supposedly was primarily pasture land, fire may harm fewer species than had it already have been well started toward natural regeneration of native plants. However, the increase in the number of rare native plants already identified after a relatively short period of regeneration on the former pasture suggests that gentler methods could work effectively at this point.

Some of the native plants in a wetland prairie do not pop up instantly after a fire and bloom the first season. For instance, the magnificent buttonbush takes a couple of years to grow back to a size that will allow it to bloom. It takes even longer for buttonbushes to develop strong stems and finally the kind of substantial trunks seen in isolated or "unmanaged" southern swamps.

Overall, the development of the prairie at the wastewater-cleansing plant is admirable. It is truly unfortunate that treatment plants are necessary. Land such as that where the treatment plant was built in its natural state encouraged water to soak in where it fell, and the soaking into the organic soil the water was cleansed. The hope is that this site will be an educational tool that can lead developers to understand that covering such areas with red dirt and pavement and over-building can only contribute to further degradation of what makes people want to live in Northwest Arkansas.

Jordan, Eiler, Koenig and Chamber discuss roads, school site


Mayoral candidates debate roads, school site

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

ADEQ won't consider environmental danger of coal


ADEQ discussion of coal-fired plant won't consider environmental danger of coal

according to story in The Morning News.

Sierra Club to hear Janine Parry discuss environmental concerns related to Fayetteville High School planning

Janine Parry to present BuildSmart program on plans for Fayetteville High School

The OHG General Monthly Meeting 7-9 PM Wed. Feb. 27 will convene @ Smilin' Jack's on School Street behind the Dickson Street Bookstore.

Janine Parry will make a presentation by BuildSmart on environmental related issues pertaining to the future of FHS.

All are welcomed, so, members and guests, come on down to participate in the dialog on building for the future while enjoying locally grown organic menu items and an assortment of organic beverages.
Parry presented related information at Monday night's meeting of Ward One residents and city council members Monday evening. However, the content will be different Wednesday, stressing environmental concerns.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Fayetteville, Ark., planning commission agenda 2/25/08


Planning Commission Agenda for 2/25/08

Two big votes in congress tomorrow


Council for a Livable World

Watershed protection group offers free brochure


Center for Watershed Protection free download of stream-protection brochures

Dead-fish storm-drain cover tells truth

Please click on link to see related photos of what is under the cover!

Gary Dumas saw the oily runoff under that cover last week and it will be cleaned out by the time you visit?



Please click on image to enlarge.

If you have never seen this storm-drain cover at the south edge of the service entry to the Urban Table (the almost new restaurant in the old post office building on the downtown square of Fayetteville, Arkansas), you may want to see it today. It will be replaced when the storm drain is rebuilt as work progresses to replace all the streets, planter boxes and sidwalks around the square this winter.

This isn't something that should happen on a city work site when the City Council on Tuesday has to deal with the huge red-dirt pollution problem created by violations of the stormwater and tree ordinances by the Stonebridge Square project a few miles east off Huntsville Road. It doesn't compare with Gary Combs' disastrous grading and filling project. But it sets a bad example. Setting policy and seeing that city workers as well as contractors working for developers in the city are TRAINED to prevent potential pollutiion problems is a necessity and should be a priority. I am confident that the sustainability coordinator, John Coleman, can do the training well. We don't need to hire a consultant to tell us how to manage stormwater.
To get an idea of what is under that cover, please visit
Gary Dumas saw this oily runoff last week and it will be cleaned out?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Web log titled Cool Earth Now praises wise council work


COOL EARTH NOW on Arcadian Court decision



Council decision on Arcadian Court in The Morning News

UA administration a bit off base in reply to campus conservationists



PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE for an enlarged view of the University of Arkansas tree dump. These huge stumps (compare to the dumpster about the same distance from Indian Trail — south of Sixth Street near Razorback Road — from which the photo was taken, for size, apparently came from the area that looks a bit like a road into the woods at right. The administration may be willing to talk to the students about sustainability, but they are clearly willing to destroy the best single weapon the campus has for fighting global and south Fayetteville warming — the incredibly magnificent huge timber not only on the main campus but on the west side of Rochier Hill. That land was donated to the UA, maybe Jonah remembers the article about the donation a few years ago. The highest and best use of the land, not only for the environment of Fayetteville and the world but also for the reputation of the University of Arkansas, is to remain as it is and make it the UA science and agriculture departments' demonstration wildlife and forest preserve. No maintenance or restoration required (unless they can bring those massive trees with their hollows large enough for an average Ozark bear back to life).

Discussing isn't something of value when these young people already KNOW the right thing to do. Just selling the beer cans in the campus dumpsters could finance a major recyling effort. Young people are sent to learn things they don't know. When students KNOW some things the administrators apparently don't know, then it is obvious that some in the administration haven't figured out that they weren't born knowing everything and that "everyone knows something they don't."

Maybe they'll offer to team with the city to hire consultants to figure how to do the wrong thing without its being noticed. Oh, I forgot, they've already done that.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Can you identify this development site?

For more photos of this disaster at Sixth and Huntsville, please see

Northwest Arkansas Environment Central on site at Sixth and Huntsville




Please click on images to enlarge.
It isn't the one we posted here a few days ago. Use the links at right to find more from that one since Saturday's rain! New pics may be on Northwest Arkansas Environment Central from that project, however.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Guess the wind blew the sign down



Please click on photo to enlarge.

Closed or destroyed?


PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

I hope they put in wi-fi for all parts of the square, so people with laptops can sit and find online photos of how the square looked during last year's farmer's market and contemplate how much better it is this year. For only $400,000 we get to watch this all winter long.
Alderman Bobby Farrell wondered aloud during this week's City Council agenda-setting session how much of that money will come from the trail and sidewalk budget and how much will be donated by grateful merchants who have been suffering because the sidewalk and planter boxes weren't of the latest design.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Who is to blame for teens doing wheelies in Jeeps on muddy, unfinished development sites?



Where did this jeep parked outside a University of Arkansas dormitory collect the mud?

Up near the railroad near the southwest corner of the Aspen Ridge failed-development site, of course. We've been wondering who was driving across the Town Branch of the West Fork on the old rail spur and leaving big muddy tracks in the 2-year-old streets of Aspen Ridge on the way to Sixth Street or Hill Avenue. As darkness settled over Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Wednesday, February 13, 2008, we spotted a likely suspect. The first sighting occurred as the Jeep careered along the edge of the railroad right of way, just off the southeast side of the track that runs SW/NE at that point between 15th and Dickson Streets. Then he pretty much slid down the muddy side of the right of way and found a level mudhole where a street is supposed to be built.

After he finished doing wheelies, the young male driver went to the University of Arkansas campus and backed into a parking space and sat for at least 10 minutes talking on a cell phone. Assumedly, he was lining up friends to go do the same the following day; or maybe he was asking his parents for extra money for fuel because there are no buses at times he wants to go to class or shopping or maybe he was asking for more money for a car wash, because people are always splashing mud on his car when he drives by the site where the chancellor's mansion is being built with no concern for stormwater regulations or what students learn from the UA official non-policy on city, state or federal water-quality rules.

He might be eligible for a small ticket for driving on the unpaved parts of the development site (the paved streets on the site are already public property, dedicated to the city) if police caught him in the act. Or he might get a polite letter of disapproval if some agency concerned about water quality got on his case. But it really isn't a big deal except for the lack of knowledge about some things he ought to already know and about the lack of courage of his parents, who allow him to drive a vehicle to another state to school when bus tickets to Memphis are cheap. He certainly has no need for a motor vehicle when he lives on the UA campus with everything but free-flowing alcohol that a Hog fan could want or need except maybe a way to go home once every month or so — unless he is living in that dorm without enrolling in course work and has no studying to do.
Finally, however, the attractive nuisance created by the clearing of 30 acres is the culprit here. The kid is just a kid. You expect foolishness from kids.

Sierra Club Conservation Awards Banquet at St. Paul's Episcopal Church begins at 6 p.m. Saturday, February 16, 2008

February 16, 2008


The Sierra Club Conservation Awards

Please join us as we honor Arkansas businesses, legislators, community organizations, and individuals who have made accomplishments in the way of conservation and protection of our state’s natural resources.
February 16, 2008
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church 
224 N East Ave.
Fayetteville AR.
 
Doors open for the Silent Auction at 6 pm. 
Dinner, provided by Greenhouse Grille, will be served at 6:30 pm. 
 
Ticket prices:
$25 in advance
$30 at the door
$15 Students

To reserve advance tickets, please mail your payment to the address below by February 9th. Make checks payable to OHG Sierra Club. For more informaion contact Molly Rawn @ 479.527.9499 or  HYPERLINK "mailto:mrawn@uark.edu" mrawn@uark.edu.
Molly Rawn
1239 E Cain Dr
Fayetteville AR  72703

Menu, speaker information for February 16, 2008, Sierra Club conservation awards banquet

Molly Rawn's reminder about Sierra Club's upcoming Conservation Awards Banquet. My apologies to anyone receiving this who did not receive a paper invitation in the mail. I have attached an invitation in Microsoft Word format.
I would like to share with you a little about our keynote speaker, Rita Harris, who has led Memphis-area environmental justice efforts for close to 20 years. She's designed and coordinated several grassroots environmental conferences and given "Toxic Tours" to educate area groups about environmental justice. These tours point out the injustices experienced by people living in the shadow of chemical polluters. She served on the Enforcement Subcommittee of the EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council during the Clinton Administration.
As for the menu Greenhouse Grille has a wonderful meal planned to include:Organic Shiitake and Portobello-Scallion Cheesecake served with
Grilled Breads
Greenhouse salad with Mixed Organic Greens, Carrot Ribbons,
Green Apples, Cranberries, Toasted Pecans, with a Balsamic
Vinaigrette
Organic Foccacia Bread and Olive Loaf
Grass Fed, Arkansas Raised Buffalo Lasagna with Mixed
Vegetables and 3 Cheese Medley.Pesto Pasta Primavera with Organic Shiitake Mushrooms,
Artichokes, Peppers, Tomatoes, Squash and Zucchini, mixed with
Fresh Organic Local Pesto and Parmesan Cheese
Our Silent Auction is sure to be a huge success! We have donations of origianl artwork made with found materials, locally made pottery, hiking equipment, hand blown glassware, gift certificates to local restaurants, locally made gourmet foods, jewlery, and spa products to mention just a few!
If you haven't purchased tickets yet, it is not too late. We will be selling tickets at the door for $30 and 15$ for students.
Please contact me if you have any questions!
See you at the banquet!
Molly Rawn, OHG Sierra Club Intern, (479) 879 1620

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

North end of North Carlsbad Trace where most of the water enters Red Oak Park from upstream


Red Oak Park in the Northwest Arkansas Times


When the stormwater flows in unusually large amounts from the watershed of Red Oak Park, debris washes down the streets and can't all slow itself down and ride the portion of the water that enters the storm drains because the drain openings are the standard size while the flow can easily "upsize." Some stopped-up storm-drain openings, such as the one in the top photo, which has been constantly blocked for months by the base of a portable baketball goal on rollers (see link to flickr photos' Red Oak Park set of photos in links of interest at right) that is actually the last opening for water to enter the underground system to enter the park, actually force part of the water to continue into the cul-de-sac and spill onto the absorbent soil at the end of the street (which was extra soggy when I walked across it to get the make the lower photo. In the top photo below, shot at about 9:11 p.m. Monday, the opening was more than adequate. A heavy downpour had occurred about 30 minutes earlier but already had ended and the water had quickly passed into the park and on downstream to the north.
So the extra water, moving extra fast, washes the debris right over the curb between the cul-de-sac and the dropoff into the wooded south end of the park. The second photo shows a small sample of what had washed over the curb when I visited last night. It was stopped by the vegetaton, but how much had gotten through the edge of the woods and fallen into the park? Is it still there this morning? Or is there even more by now? Or is it mostly out of the park and scattered over the downstream neighbor's yard? With the help of a south wind combined with heavy rain, fast-food containers, cups and such can actually travel all the way down streets and storm drains from some places on Wedington Drive.


For more on Red Oak Park, see preceding post and
Red Oak Park — Fayetteville, Arkansas blogspot

Final Revision about 3:20 a.m.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Ward 4 Red Oak Park meeting successful despite rain and lightning

The Government Channel video from Monday's Ward Four meeting will run once on Cox Cable Channel 16 today (Tuesday Feb. 11, 2007) and again late Wednesday evening, after the replay of the City Council session to set the agenda for the coming week and after after a replay of a week-old subcommittee meeting of the Telecom Board to discuss the performance report on the CAT channel 18.

View Larger Map
The exact time is impossible to predict, because the meetings before Ward 4 all occurred on Monday. The Planning Commission meeting replay will begin at 9 a.m. The Advertising and Promotion Commission meeting will follow right after that and then the Ward Four meeting. All deserve attention if anyone has time to monitor his TV all morning! I'll have them all on but can't promise to watch every minute. Everything after that on the schedule will simply follow in turn. At 6:30 p.m., the Planning Commission meeting will be replayed for the final time unless someone requests a third replay for next week. After the planning commission, one can watch an "environmental assessment of the relocation of a portion of U.S. 71 near Drake Field (that means the "finding again" of the old highway. However, in this case I believe the environmental assessment is about MOVING part of the highway or destroying a bunch of pavement and paving another nice stretch of moist-soil prairie. I haven't seen this production and can't guess what it is about. Is Drake Field being enlarged by the need to provide a longer runway for the commercial jets that are beginning to overburden XNA? Or has one of the rich and powerful (or one of the few developers still able to get a loan to build something new in our overbuilt area) come up with a new project? After that, the A&P meeting will be rerun again.
On Wednesday, the council agenda session reruns 9 a.m., followed by the Water and Sewer Committee meeting and then the PEG Center equipment committee meeting (Public, Educational and Government television center) replay from Feb. 12.
Early afternoon Wednesday, the so-called Tanglewood Creek cleanup video will be rerun. Tanglewood Creek apparently is "cityspeak" for Tanglewood Branch, which is a small branch that flows from Dickson Street and Maple, Lafayette and most other "downtown" Fayetteville areas south into the Spout Spring Branch, a major tributary of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River. Not everyone knows that Branch is a name applied to a small tributary of a river, creek or bayou. Therefore, "creek" gets mistakenly tacked onto after the world "Branch."

Another replay of the council agenda session begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, followed by the special committee meeting of the Telecom Board trying to decide how to evaluate the performance of the CAT channel (something pretty difficult to determine because CAT's mission is to allow very diverse programming instigated by the public and available at the whim of people who decide to produce a show or take the training to become CAT producers during a given period) will be replayed from last week. The second showing of the Ward Four meeting will follow. Afterward, the water and sewer committee is to be shown again, followed by a short City View program on our wonderful trails. Another night with no Sopranos or Closer? But those with intense interest in city government will have a chance to get a big dose this week.

On Cox channel 18, the CAT, Tuesday items for the Town Branch neighborhood show again but not early.
The earliest environmentally significant video begins at 1 p.m., focusing on the so-called Fayetteville Shale Play. This really has little to do with Fayetteville. The area now being explored for natural gas is mostly in north central Arkansas. But some local people are pretty concerned about the environmental disasters that come with any kind of mineral exploration. Oil and gas exploration processes are at least as harmful as coal mining! And some people in Northwest Arkansas have small shares in land about to be invaded by gas-exploration companies. So please check it out.
At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Robert Williams of Hill Avenue spends 15 minutes talking about the changes brought to the Town Branch riparian zone and neighborhood by the developers of the now defunct Aspen Ridge project, and he reacts to the Jan. 12 meeting of the neighbors and Ward One residents with people planning to revive the development as Hill Place, an apartment complex for University of Arkansas students — the worst nightmare of some longtime residents of the neighborhood.
At 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Deirdre Shepherd revisits the Town Branch and reminesces about her high-school and young adult days when walking the area now cleared of trees and topsoil by the Aspen Ridge developers meant seeing birds, and trees and wildflowers and a cleaner stream and, basically, a truly "green, sustainable area." Watch and find out what she really said. I am summarizing and maybe slightly distorting her words, maybe. But the wind was strong and the audio is almost as shaky as the cameraman. The editor and producer, Mike Lanphere, did a great job cutting out the worst parts. But he didn't expect any awards from editing that tape, just doing a favor for his neighborhood.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF WARD FOUR SPECIAL MEETING ON FUTURE OF RED OAK PARK

The WARD FOUR meeting between 7 and 8:30 p.m. Monday Feb. 11, 2008, got something accomplished. The relatively small group who attended — during a significant thunderstorm with the threat of ice to follow — agreed (mostly quietly) that the two City Council members representing Ward Four — Aldermen LIONELD JORDAN and SHIRLEY LUCAS — should go ahead and bring up to the full council a Red Oak Park plan that would include allowing the Game and Fish plan prepared by Dave Evans to go forward as soon as it is practical for the park division of the city Department of Parks and Recreation to begin work.
I imagine the park people and street people and whoever else is involved will have to get the downtown square back into shape first. Half the sidewalk around the square has been demolished in the past two weeks for renovation and even some small trees and many plantings and planting boxes are gone. Earthday and Springfest and the Fayetteville Farmer's Market will be coming up sooner than one could imagine while sitting here at 1:45 a.m. on Feb. 12, 2008, with sleet hitting the upstairs windows!

Additionally, JORDAN and LUCAS agreed that the plan should go forward with a plan to continue to provide information about the value of rain gardens to residents of the surrounding subdivisions and to make a volunteer-led effort to bring about the creation of enough new areas where water is encouraged to soak in upstream (to the south) so that the speed and amount of water rapidly reaching the park during heavy rain would no longer create a dangerous flash flood in the park.

My plan would be the same but preferably in the opposite order. Save the money and keep the removal of trees and widening of the stream bed until the rain-garden plan is executed. Then we will know whether any or how many trees have to be removed to "save the trees."

But I would have voted for the combined plan if I lived in the neighborhood (and got to vote) and used that park. And especially if I lived downstream and was watching my land be covered by debris and gravel every time the stream flow is heavy.
Widening the channel and trying to force the stream to meander will help. However, the land is so steep that it would take pretty big reservoirs in the flow area rather than a batch of boulders and small channel changes to make a real difference. Dave Evans' Stream Team plan works great where there is enough space to create WIDE meanders and where the drop in the stream is relatively gradual. And it will work fine during light rain such as we had last night (Monday evening during and after the meeting).
One has to remember, however, that piling rocks in the Arkansas River, White River, Red River and Mississippi River to redirect the flow is a specialty of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And the corps frequently has to redo that activity in those big rivers.

The stream through Red Oak Park is different in several ways. It is dry 99 percent of the time. If you don't go there early this morning you may not find even a small flow. At this minute, 2:07 a.m. Tuesday, there is probably a lot more flow than when I visited at about 9 p.m. Monday. Precipitation, frozen and wet, continues to fall where I live in south Fayetteville.
Also, the stream at Red Oak Park is narrow, and it is extremely steep and the bedrock is exposed for the full length of the park because of the past few years of erosion. As in the case of snowfall and other matters of major significance to human beings and Mother Nature, one can't predict how much satisfaction will come from this renovation project or how long its effects will last.

We may not have enough extended periods of heavy rain in 2008 to create flashfloods that would continue the damaging erosion of the park. Everyone knows that 2004 was the year that most streambed erosion occurred everywhere in the area. Multi-inch rains of up to 6 inches in far less than 24 hours occurred three times in this area during 2004, once in the last week of April and twice in the first week of July. A story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette documented the surprise of people living in a high-dollar subdivision on the White River upstream from Beaver Lake when the lake itself rose into their ground-level rooms. Their title-companies hadn't explained at closing on their purchases of their homes that flooding of the area would be permitted any time the Corps of Engineers decided the flood gates at Beaver Dam needed to be closed to protect property in far north Arkansas and southern Missouri from White River flooding.

We may see the year that Beaver Lake gets so little rain that we'll be like Atlanta, Georgia, wondering where the reservoir went, and the rural people in the surrounding four counties will be wondering why they disconnected the pump from their old well or pond or spring and made themselves dependent on an artificial, manmade storage facility and miles of pipes. So, whatver we do now may be sufficient for some time. Maybe nothing will actually be needed for years!

However, in the four meetings (three Ward 4 meetings and one council meeting) I have attended and spoken about the problem, I have been the ONLY person who has volunteered to walk the neighborhood, knock on doors and hand out copies of a brochure on rain gardens and try to explain why they need to keep the water on their property. It has been said that people in some of the subdivisions there are concerned about saving the trees to allow the area to continue to serve as a nature park. But I haven't seen anyone express this concern since a few appeared at a council meeting months ago. If someone knows any of those people, please bring them to this Web log and let's hear it from them!

We first talked publicly about ways to keep the water where it falls to stop the flash floods nearly six months ago. A video shown a few times on Government channel showed people walking the park and discussing trying to save it long ago!

If the neighborhood representatives and property-owners' associations in the area haven't turned up a few people willing to make the effort to put in rain gardens or at least speak at the many public meetins, I don't know that I would benefit by starting to canvass the neighborhod on my own — so many problems, so little time.

I went to check the flow in the park after the meeting. I hope others did, too. There were some hard bursts of rain; but, as of 11 p.m. there had not been enough extended periods of heavy rain to create the kind of flash flood that has created the problem of major stream-bed erosion in the past.

So my photos from last night don't show a dangerous flow. If I could stay up all night and sit in my car on New Bridge Drive or Road or Street until dawn, I might get photos that would show the situation well enough to get people interested. But it may not rain any more tonight.

So, if you are one of the neighbors who has commented or at least found and read
Red Oak Park — Fayetteville, Arkansas blogspot
and maybe looked at our photos on Flickr (see list of links of interest at right for more Red Oak Park photos, please share this site and offer your comments here. Just click on the word "comments" below this post on either site and don't hold back. Say what you think.

It it is raining hard when you wake up, please take a camera to New Bridge and photograph it yourself. I will assist you in posting your photos if you e-mail me or comment on either this site or the Red Oak Park site that you have photos. The coding is simple to copy and paste if you have photos online elsewhere.

If not, the best thing would be to email a photo or two and let me post them. I promise to do that as soon as they appear in my e-mail.

Shirley Lucas, Lioneld Jordan and the rest of the Fayetteville City Council have patiently waited for interested citizens and the park division of the Fayetteville Department of Parks and Recreation to offer a reasonable plan. If this is the best we can do, then let it go to the council and let's get to work on it.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Tonight last chance to see rerun of Jan. 12, 2008, Ward One and Town Branch Neighborhood meeting with Aspen Ridge developers

LAST CHANCE TO SEE REPLAY of Town Branch Neighborhood and Ward 1 meeting with developers planning to replace Aspen Ridge developers to create student housing in the Town Branch overflow area and former wetland west of South Hill Avenue between Sixth and Eleventh streets in south Fayetteville, Arkansas.

8:45 pm Friday Feb. 7, 2008 — Ward 1/Town Branch-Neighborhood Meeting on Cox Cable channel 18, Fayetteville Public Access Television, the CAT!

9:30 am Saturday Feb. 8, 2008— Talking about how the neighborhood used to be — Robert Williams on Town Branch Neighborhood — on Cox Cable channel 18, Fayetteville Public Access Television, the CAT!

Robert Williams, whose property on South Hill Avenue is bordered on the west by the Aspen Ridge dredged and filled wetland, spoke while looking northwest from the intersection of South Duncan Avenue and Eleventh Street where a wetland area dredged out for a future street on rainy days is called Aspen Bayou by people who drive by.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Aspen Ridge's muddy runoff flows again on February 5, 2008



PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE photo of muddy water running off unfinished and no-longer city authorized Aspen Ridge site and into storm drain at the Intersection of South Duncan Avenue and Eleventh Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas, after a rainstorm on February 15, 2008.

Please see
COOL EARTH NOW closeup photo of unfinished storm drain flooded by Aspen Ridge runoff
from different angle.

Announcement from Northwest Arkansas Sustainability Center:
$10members/$15 non-members of organizing group.
Speaker: Dr. Robert Costanza from the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics
02/07/2008 - 17:00
About the speaker: Dr. Costanza is the co-founder and past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics and former chief editor of Ecological Economics. His research has focused on the interface between ecological and economic systems. His work has been cited in over 3,000 scientific articles since 1987, and more than 80 interviews and reports on his work have been cited in various media, including Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Economist, The New York Times, National Geographic, Science, and National Public Radio.
Title: Toward an Ecological Economy: Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future
Location: Willard J. Walker Hall, Room 427 Sponsors: U of A Applied Sustainability Center and U of A Department of Geosciences
Ecological Economics Roundtable
02/08/2008 - 10:00
Dr. Robert Costanza will lead a roundtable discussion on ecological economics on Friday morning, Feb 8.
Location: U of A Innovation Center, 535 Research Center Blvd., Fayetteville, AR.
Contact info: Call 479 575 5717 for details.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Political Animals to meet

Email from a Democrat:

If Republicans email, I'll run comparable item in equal space.

Political Animals will meet this Friday from 7 to 8 a.m. at the Clarion Inn in Fayetteville. Robbie Willis who will be the Speaker of the House of Representatives will be guest speaker. If you plan to attend email Richard Hudson (rhudson@uark.edu) or call Sheri Lynn Tuck at 575-7964.

Don't forget that Senior Democrats will meet on Tuesday, February 19th at 11:30 at Western Sizzlin in Springdale. A buffet lunch will cost $8. You do not need a reservation. State Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney will be guest speaker. Everyone is invited and I hope you will bring several guests.

Dues are $15. We hope that you will join and get your name in THE BOOK.

If you change emails, don't want to get emails or have an email and are still being called, please let me know. I want to make you happy.

I hope to see all of you at Senior Democrats.