Planners Review Camp War Eagle Expansion

— A proposed five-year expansion plan for Camp War Eagle on Beaver Lake in eastern Benton County generated few questions from county planners in their initial review Wednesday.

The Planning Board, meeting as the board’s Technical Advisory Committee, spent about 30 minutes hearing details of the plan and asking questions before sending it on to a public hearing at the board’s Feb. 6 meeting.

According to information from the planning staff, the expansion calls for building 14 camper cabins, some staff cabins, office space and a picnic pavilion on about 44 acres of the 383-acre camp site.

The initial plan was approved by the Washington County’s Planning Board April 1, 2004. The land was in Washington County at the time, according to Pete Day, director of Camp War Eagle, but was later transferred to Benton County at the same time some Benton County territory on the opposite side of Beaver Lake was transferred to Washington County.

Day said the land swap was voluntary and was initiated by the camp to facilitate emergency services to the camp.

Day said the additional cabins would allow Camp War Eagle to house up to 600 campers at a time. He said the facility has had as many as 550 camper in its existing configuration. He said the camp’s water and sewer systems are both designed for a higher capacity than the camp requires and the additions will still be well within the capacity of the systems.

“Nothing that we’re proposing changes the scope of how we’ve been operating since 2006,” Day said.

The board asked some questions about the organization of the camp, its status as a nonprofit organization and the land transfer between the two counties but raised no serious questions about the project before moving it forward to the Feb. 6 meeting.

Also Wednesday, the board heard from Dorothy Hesse of Gravette who lives within a mile of the Nighthawk shooting range near Centerton. Hesse said she is disappointed in the process that led to approving the shooting range and suggested the board “go home” if they have no power to enforce planning regulations.

John Pate, a board member, said the board’s vote to deny a permit to the business had been overturned by an appeals panel of three Benton County justices of the peace.

“That’s who she needs to be talking to,” Pate said.

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