Red Oak Park erosion problem requires upstream help

Red Oak Park's rapidly eroding creek is a tough problem.

But now is the time to make a plan.

Presentations on the park situation have been shown on the Government Channel 16 on Cox Cable in Fayetteville and presentations have been made to the council and to other groups about the problems.

Dave Evans of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is revising his plan for slowing the flow within the park. However, that process will require removing some magnificent mature trees. Some of those trees will be uprooted and washed downstream within a relatively short time, so removing the right ones and reconfiguring the stream bed to create meanders and wider places for eddies in the stream during storms may be the only solution.

On the other hand, let's think BIG. Let's use every bit of public right of way upstream from that park to create areas of absorbent soil, small dams to slow runoff and actual rain gardens.
Let's go further. Use the bully pulpit of the mayor and council to speed the process of educating the public on watershed issues and encourage and subsidize as best we can the creation of small raingardens on every lot upstream from the park.

We need to make our public-access channels MUST-VIEW outlets for our citizens. And we may need to put a combination of Dave's revised plan and a concomitant plan addressing the source of the problem: Routing all the upstream storm drains into various kinds of storm-water detention ponds, some rain gardens and maybe some just flat areas with absorbent soil

We must stop routing the bulk of the water into the wooded ravine that soon could be an open ditch if not addressed soon.

Detention ponds as found on most sites do not detain water long enough to let the storm end, much less allow the creek to get back into its banks before having more water added.

In private conversations I find that MOST people understand what should be done. And the ones who still think that ditching and draining the water as fast as possible is OK are intelligent enough to learn. And most people have to see only one example of the result of such draining to get the message.