The flow of news

Taking a spill

Atruly unusual flow of news spilled across Northwest Arkansas media last week. Here’s some of the poop (apologies) on what happened.

In West Fork, sewage from the town’s wastewater treatment in early April flowed freely into the adjacent White River that flows into Beaver Lake. The mess raised concern about water quality in the lake, which supplies water for this region of 420,000 folks besides being a popular recreation attraction.

John Pennington of the Beaver Watershed Alliance explained the potential consequences. “It’s very bad when sewage ends up in the river. People can get sick.”

Naturally, the community’s utilities manager maintained that two weeks of such steady drainage really wasn’t a “large amount” of overflow expected to reach the lake in diluted state late next month. Despite that attempted reassurance, no one really seemed to know just how much raw sewage entered the river before it finally stopped. I feel a tad less than reassured.

And officials added it’s “unlikely” that the mess contaminated any drinking wells. More reassurance.

Nonetheless, those who manage the Beaver Water District expressed concern that anyone playing in the river might become ill from excessive coliform bacteria stemming from the overflow. They also are paying attention to how this spill and any in the future (since this isn’t the first such incident there) might affect the lake’s longer-term water quality. Sounds to me like fixing West Fork’s sewage woes is a priority for nearly half a million of us.

Then there was the sewage spill in Tontitown last week from a honeywagon truck heading from Huntsville to Tontitown’s regional landfill.

Somehow the truck’s rear lift gate opened to leave a thick trail of unmentionable mess for about two miles along Klenc Road just south of U.S. 412.

Work crews from several agencies spent hours scraping and vacuuming ankle-deep and far less-than-aromatic results into another truck.

The broadcast news that evening featured interviews with area residents downwind who commented on the inescapable fragrance from that mishap.

Workers were spreading lime to help ease the odor, but expected the road to remain slick for a while to come, especially if it rains (which incidentally it has).

My guess is the area smelled a lot like the air that today often envelops the good folks of Mount Judea over in Newton County who, thanks to our state and Cargill Inc., are living with the consequences of as many as 6,500 hogs surrounding their little town in the Buffalo National River watershed (sorry, couldn’t resist the comparison).A senator’s heart

All right, enough lowdown on that subject.

Count me among the many thousands who was surprised to hear that our junior senator, John Boozman, underwent emergency surgery in Rogers last week to repair an acute aortic dissection (a tear) in his heart.

The senator was taken by his wife to the hospital in the night after experiencing pain in his chest and shoulder.

Surgeons worked for hours to successfully fix the split that had opened, which could have proven fatal if unrepaired.

The former Razorback, despite his mild, calm demeanor, is a tough fighter. He’s also the only one who took the initiative to call and discuss that hog farm mentioned above after I challenged our elected delegation members to express their feelings on the way Arkansas allowed this factory to set up shop in the state’s most sacred (and formerly protected) watershed.

Get well soon, Senator Boozman. You have so many folks, including me, praying and rooting for your healing and full recovery.

Five NWA top schools

It was good but not surprising to see that five of the state’s top public high schools, as chosen annually by a national magazine, are in Northwest Arkansas.

Topping the list, published by U.S. News and World Report, was Martin Schoppmeyer’s Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville. That’s the third year in a row for Haas Hall. And of the 31,242 public high schools examined across America, Haas Hall ranked 137th nationally, the only state school that made the magazine’s “gold group.”

Schoppmeyer credits the academy’s 316-student, 19-teacher sustained success with plain old-fashioned commitment and collective dedication to hard work, along with a motivated student body, faculty and supportive parents. “Complacency is not an option,” Schoppmeyer told the press. Schoppmeyer’s goal for the school is to replace The School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas as the nation’s best. Sell Schoppmeyer short at your own peril, my friends.

I also find it interesting that nowhere does he credit “an endless pot of money.”

The other Arkansas high schools from the Ozarks making the top six and their “silver group” national rankings are: Third, Bentonville High (improving to 580th nationally); fourth, Rogers High School (837th nationally); fifth, Rogers Heritage High School (885th); and sixth, Pea Ridge High School (890th).

Ranked second in Arkansas is Kipp Delta Collegiate High in Helena, 567th nationally.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.

Editorial, Pages 85 on 04/27/2014

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