Environmental notebook

Education grants offered to schools

The Regional Recycling and Waste Reduction District will give out $1,000 grants to 10 schools to “start, expand or provide education about their recycling programs,” according to the district’s website.

The district is one of 18 solid waste districts in Arkansas that are largely funded by the state Department of Environmental Quality. It operates only in Pulaski County, and the grants will be available only for public and private schools teaching first through 12th grades in the county.

The deadline is Nov. 4 for schools to apply.

Comments taken on forest project

Public comments will be accepted until mid-November on the environmental assessment for a project on 4,160.7 acres in the Ouachita National Forest, called the Holly Mountain Ecosystem Management Unit Project.

The Poteau-Cold Springs Ranger District plans to thin those acres of the forest through cutting and prescribed burns and to remove non-native species using herbicides and hand tools. The district also intends to reconstruct ponds and perform road maintenance.

The environmental assessment, required by law, issued a finding of “no significant impact,” and the 45-day comment period on the assessment began after publishing a notice of the comment period Oct. 5.

Some of the trees to be removed are loblolly pines, which allow less light to hit the ground than native shortleaf pines. The ranger district’s environmental assessment indicates a preference for a greater concentration of shortleaf pines, and states across the southeastern United States are participating in an initiative to increase the numbers of shortleaf pines, which were replaced by loblolly pines in earlier decades for timber use.

The conditions of those 4,160.7 acres of the forest are crowded with aging trees, many of which are non-native, according to the ranger district’s Environmental Assessment published this month.

“These conditions result in stress and reduced vigor and health, increasing susceptibility to insects and disease,” the report notes.

Anyone interested in the project can access the assessment and other related documents at http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=47798.

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