What comes up must go down, and when the Arkansas River eventually retreats from the central Arkansas trails that bear its name, it will leave behind a mess of silty sand and debris.
"That has to be cleaned off before the trails can reopen," says Rob Stephens, chairman of the Arkansas River Trail Foundation. "The way we do it now is just so outdated."
The foundation is conducting a donation drive to raise $18,000 to buy North Little Rock Parks and Recreation a trail sweeper, to speed the work of reopening trails after floods and make routine trail-cleaning more effective.
The machine, a Victory Sweepers model T-600, would be dragged along the paved River Trail by a new side-by-side all-terrain vehicle -- supplied by the city parks department in its part of a $36,000 public-private project. The department plans to buy the ATV using $18,000 that has already been budgeted to replace an aging Kawasaki Mule.
It will also be used to patrol the trails, for trail building and at special events, says Ian Hope, North Little Rock's park ranger. "We were getting rid of the one we've got now to buy one that was better suited to our needs."
The T-600 trail sweeper, which weighs 1,000 pounds unloaded, has circular brushes for dislodging dirt, a vacuum cleaner for inhaling it and a hopper where another 1,000 pounds of whatever can be stored. It can be used to take debris off the trail and carry it someplace else for dumping.
After a flood, says Hope, the sweeper would be brought in after the bulk of deposited silt had been scraped off the trail the way it usually is.
"You can scoop up the big portion of it with a backhoe, a front-end loader or a Bobcat excavator, but that
doesn't get all of it off," Hope says. "It only gets down to about an inch. Then you've got to scrape it off."
Currently, this is the art of trail cleaning that takes the most time. Last year, trail users turned out to help in a one-day cleaning effort, but that, Hope says, was more "a feel-good moment" than effective.
He has been using "one of those big highway brooms, the big things that have the circular brush on the boot. It loosens it all up, and then we came in behind with a blower and blew it off" -- to the side of the trail, where it piled up in drainage-impeding mounds that tend to wash back onto the trail with the next heavy rain.
The blower is dangerous, Hope says. "It almost knocked me off my feet once, when I stepped in front. I've [accidentally] knocked a squirrel over with it before. It balled that squirrel up and rolled him up a hill. It was terrible but also funny."
Instead of blowing debris, the sweeper would brush it loose and then inhale it.
With a T-600, Hope says, "We will actually be able to remove it from the trail and take it to a strategic location. What we're planning on doing is, there's a lot of areas on the trail that have eroded away, and we've got drop-offs. We're going to take that debris and start filling those drop-offs in and cover that with more gravel."
Stephens says the foundation is a 501(c)3 charity and donations would be tax-deductible. "Talk to your accountant," he adds.
Buying the sweeper is the foundation's second project. Last year it obtained donations from Dassault Falcon Jet and the Little Rock Port Authority to create the Southeast Trail in eastern Little Rock, with signs marking the bicycle route from the Clinton Presidential Center to the Little Rock Port.
Donations may be mailed to the Arkansas River Trail Foundation, P.O. Box 242591, Little Rock, Ark. 72223; credit-card donations may be placed using a link at arkansasrivertrail.org under "Trails" and "Donate."
ActiveStyle on 01/04/2016