Governor signs House Bill 1577 on March 16, 2009, with Northwest Arkansas sponsor and supporters on hand

House Bill 1577
Please click on images to ENLARGE view of Governor signing HB 1577 in lower photo and Bob Caulk (from left) of the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association, Delia Haak of the Illinois River Partnership, Joyce Hale of the Sierra Club holding a copy of the bill, and legislator Uvalde Lindsey, the chief sponsor of the bill, after the signing.
Hale, a northwest Arkansas environmental activist associated with the Sierra Club, League of Women voters, OMNI Center for Peace Justice and Ecology, the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association and many other conservation groups, was a leading proponent of the effort to get legislative backing for the measure to encourage protection of riparian zones, wetland and other important elements of Arkansas' waterways.

Storm drain built in June 2006 for Aspen Ridge getting close to completion for Hill Place

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of 11th street from intersection with Duncan on June 7, 2006. Storm drain at left, Hill Avenue in background. Street destroyed and blocked off. Blacktop overlay applied in 2007. New round of dump trucks damaging the new surface.

Please click on image to ENLARGE view same storm drain on June 7, 2006, when it first was created for the Aspen Ridge project.

Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River a major conduit of silt from urban development sites to Beaver Lake

Please click on images of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River on the upstream (north) side of the bridge at Eleventh Street where the water from the storm drain shown in the preceding posts enters the branch. The brief, heavy rain had stopped and the flow had decreased. And muddy water had not yet begun to flow from sources upstream, so there was a marked contrast in the silt-load of the flow from the storm drain and the flow of the main branch. Had I chosen to risk destroying my camera in the rain, I would have shown how large the muddy flow had been only a few minutes earlier.

Storm drain top added but source of the muddy runoff remains

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of storm drain at the intersection of Eleventh Street and South Duncan Avenue. The top photo shows the newly poured concrete top on March 11, 2009. The other two are from the afternoon of March 10, 2009, after a short period of heavy rain brought muddy runoff down the unpaved street on the construction project to the northwest.

This erosion/pollution problem existed in July 2006 when the Aspen Ridge workers left this construction site and never returned

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of March 10, 2009, runoff from development site in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where contractors have replaced the absorbent, rich, black prairie soil with yellow and red dirt that runs off rapidly after each rain. The receiving stream is the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River, which is a tributary of the White River and Beaver Lake, northwest Arkansas' main source of water.

Woodcock to draw bird-watchers to Wedington area this evening, Sunday, March 15, 2009

American Woodcock field trip Sunday March 15. Sponsored by Northwest
Arkansas Audubon Society.

The 450-acre Wedington Small Game Area is on the northwest
corner of the Wedington Unit of the Ozark-St. Francis NF, approx. 16
miles west of Fayetteville & approx. 4 miles east of Siloam Springs.
The 15,000-acre Wedington Unit is designated as an Urban Forest. We
will listen for & hopefully observe woodcocks in the small game area.

From the intersection of HWY 412 and Interstate 540 in Springdale, go
west approx. 13.2 miles on HWY 412. Note that Kincheloe Road bisects
412, with turns north AND south. If you are driving from Springdale,
you will first pass Kincheloe Rd on your north at approx. 12.6-12.7
miles; don't turn. Keep going another 0.5 miles and turn left SOUTH
onto Kincheloe Road and travel WEST for approx. 1.3 miles to Forest
Service road 1754 (on the right). We will meet at this intersection
(Kincheloe and FS 1754) promptly at 5:30 PM. (if you arrive late,
drive 1754 & find us ? we will be less than a mile away on the road).
Bring a chair, since we will sit and wait for the woodcock displays to
begin near and shortly after sunset. LOTS of other birds are in the
area to enjoy during the wait. Mosquitoes could be out & about if the
weather is warm. Sunset is 7:25 PM.

View Larger Map
Overall, this should be a fairly easy trip for most folks, including
those with walking impairments. The woodcock displays should be
viewable/audible from where we park. Maps: if you use Google Earth,
type Kincheloe Road Siloam Springs, AR into the search. This will
produce a map of this area. There is also a map of the Wedington Unit
at:
http://www.agfc.com/!userfiles/pdfs/wma_lake_maps/Wedington%20WMA%20Map.pdf

JOSEPH C. NEAL in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Citizen's First Congress urges all to support bills in legislature for energy efficiency and the fight against climate change

We need your help to support a package of energy efficiency legislation that will help the environment, save consumers money and create good Arkansas jobs. These seven bills are a great package that will need a lot of your support to pass.

Please sign the online petition for better Arkansas energy policy, and contact your legislators to let them know you support energy efficiency.

The Energy and Global Warming Package is:

HB1903 (Cash) The Energy Efficiency Performance Standards Act of 2009 will require the PSC to expand existing electric and gas utility efficiency programs provide incentives for insulation and weatherization and create jobs by expanding businesses involved in energy efficiency. It is in the House Insurance and Commerce Committee.
HB1851 (Webb) will help lower barriers to creating a renewable energy market in Arkansas and help consumers and Arkansas companies upgrade to renewable energy. It is in the House Insurance and Commerce Committee.
HB1663 (Webb) Lead By Example legislation will increase efficiency in schools and government buildings – resulting in substantial savings for the state. It is in the Joint Energy Committee.
SB584 (Broadway) will provide low-cost financing to be used to retrofit state government and school facilities and remove legal barriers to the funding that would make them more energy efficient. It is in the Senate Insurance and Commerce Committee.
SB440 (Broadway) allows the work of the Sustainable Building Design Task Force to continue. It is in the Senate State Agencies Committee.
HB1902 (Cash) will amend the Arkansas motorcycle code to allow highly efficient 3-wheeled electric vehicles on the streets regulated as cars. It is in the House Public Transportation Committee.
HB2008 (Webb) gives a tax credit to encourage the recovery and use of landfill methane gas. It’s not been assigned to committee yet.

The Citizens First Congress is a grassroots coalition of over 40 community groups from across Arkansas that works on progressive reform at the Arkansas Legislature.

Our Ten Priorities for a Better Arkansas for the 2009 Arkansas Legislature are
Increased resources for rural and small business economic development.
Enact the recommendations of the HIV/AIDS Task Force.
Progressive tax reform to provide low and middle income tax relief while generating sufficient state revenue.
Enact the recommendations of the Global Warming Commission.
Create an Arkansas Civil Rights Commission.
Close the education achievement gap.
Enact the Dream Act to make sure every student graduating from an Arkansas school has the opportunity to pay in-state college tuition.
Create a Task Force on Arkansas Water Resources.
Increase penalties for and enforcement of wage theft.
Expand state incentives for land conservation.

Workers continue to collect tree debris in Fayetteville

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of Jeff Carter of Gainesville, Fla., and Doug Kermashak of Bella Vista on
Friday 13, 2009. The team was out again in the rain on Saturday morning. Carter was picking up loads of tree debris in Fayetteville while Kermashak was documenting the work for FEMA reimbursement.

Local blog with information we might not get from newspaper reports: UA hired contractor to remove UA silt from duck pond

This item on a local blog this week is especially interesting because it includes real news written from the viewpoint of someone who was there throughout the event, not just one of us reporter-types who shows up and asks questions of public officials and occasionally of witness. Jennie answered questions that we didn't think to ask:

Beverly Manor apartment fire from a resident's Web log
There are two buildings in my complex. I'm on my porch, so my building was fine--but the other building lost several apartments on the end, and everyone in that building had to be evacuated. They cannot return to their homes until tomorrow, and who knows when their power and gas will be turned on, or if they'll even be able to live there.

Jenn posted this on her blog after midnight Wednesday (12:34 a.m. Thursday):
What caused this splendid display of pyrotechnics?

Well, the UNIVERSITY hired a contractor to dig out the pond in front of the apartment building because their (UA's) recent CONSTRUCTION had CAUSED a great deal of sediment to be dumped into our pond.
Through a series of mishaps, the big backhoe (actually a trackdigger according to contractors) ended up in the drained pond, sunk into the loose mud and sediment. Then they broke the gas line. The gas company came out and was presumably taking care of the situation.

Lance and I were sitting in my apartment when an explosion rattled our windows. "That's a gas line blowing," said Lance. We dashed out the door--to see what was going on, to rescue our friends in the building, something--and we saw smoke. Then little flames. Then MASSIVE FLAMES. The people in the two apartments that were on fire got out (including our landlord's mother), so no one was hurt, and all the residents and area citizens watched as the firetrucks came screaming from down the road (the advantages of living downtown, two blocks from a fire station).

Jenn posted this at 2:48 p.m. Friday:
It's funny to realize how much the media has gotten wrong about our fire on Wednesday. It's really small stuff, but it's still amusing. And it really makes me wonder how much else they get wrong with other stories.

I'm not going to link to any stories in particular (though this one is probably the most accurate), but the general errors include the timeline of events, how much was damaged, who was affected, and what happened. They all claim that swift action on the part of the police department was responsible for getting everyone out safely, when really it was the swift action on the part of residents that got everyone out. And the fact that when you hear a giant explosion and see flames, you're likely to leave the building that's on fire as quickly as possible. Also, a few UA staff members were affected but no faculty. Details, people, details.

Track digger freed from mud on Friday the 13th

Please click on image to ENLARGE view of trackdigger after it was freed from the mud at the old pond at Beverly Manor Apartments in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on March 13, 2009.