Some people think Harrison has a dam problem.
The Arkansas Stream Heritage Partnership wants to help the city fix it by removing the low-head dam in Crooked Creek that created Lake Harrison in the 1990s.
“They wanted a cute little community lake,” said Darrell Bowman, assistant chief of the fisheries division at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. “They got it. And they got the maintenance nightmare that comes with it.”
Harrison considered removing the 10-foot-tall dam a couple of years ago, said Wade Phillips, the city’s public works director, but it “didn’t gain much traction.”
Then, in November, a couple was swept away in a flash flood.
City officials figured John and Amy Villines had been washed into Lake Harrison. The lake was drained and dredged, but they weren’t there.
Their bodies were eventually found 20 miles downstream, having apparently traveled through a drainage tunnel under downtown Harrison, into Lake Harrison, over the dam and farther down Crooked Creek.
“It’s reasonable to assume that recent events have likely kindled more interest in the community to consider looking at other options for Crooked Creek,” Phillips said in an email.
Phillips said it cost about $70,000 to drain and dredge the lake last year. That’s cheaper than usual because the lake was cleaned out a year earlier, he said.
Phillips said it cost $150,000 to clean out the lake the previous time, and $230,000 the time before that. It has to be done every few years.
“They’re maintenance hogs,” he said. “It fills up with sediment where it’s really not a lake, just a few inches of water.”
If the dam were removed, maintaining the creek would be considerably less expensive, Phillips said.
The 8-acre lake is right next to downtown Harrison. It’s particularly scenic at night, with lights shimmering on the water’s surface.
But during the summer, it’s stagnant and a magnet for geese and ducks, Phillips said. The birds leave droppings in the lake.
Nationwide, there has been a trend to remove dams and restore streams to a more ecological natural state. Bowman said that trend is just now reaching Arkansas, as the state’s old dams deteriorate or are abandoned.
Bowman was director of the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission when in January 2018 he “instigated” the formation of the Arkansas Stream Heritage Partnership. The Game and Fish Commission is one of about 20 partners in the effort, along with the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Nature Conservancy.
The partnership’s mission is to “restore the natural free-flowing heritage of Arkansas streams, opportunistically and efficiently.” Bowman said they’re not trying to replace dams that are useful.
According to a slide in Bowman’s PowerPoint presentation on the subject, the partnership is focusing on obsolete, inoperable, damaged or intact dams that have lost the original utility function, with “dam owners interested in removal.”
The effort includes poorly designed, damaged and/ or abandoned low-water or culvert stream crossings, referred to as “slabs” in Arkansas.
Dams are removed for four reasons, Bowman said:
Safety: Water can flow over low-head dams, but that creates a recirculating current on the low side of a dam that is known as “the drowning machine” in the Game and Fish Commission’s boating safety course.
Improved recreation: Kayakers and other outdoors people can better enjoy the streams.
Improved tourism and economic benefits.
To restore the ecology.
“The single worst thing you can do to a stream is impound it, block it,” Bowman said. “So removing that structure is the best way you can help a stream. Many of our aquatic organisms need population connectivity.”
Replacing deteriorating dams is expensive.
“So why replace something that you don’t even need anymore, and we can do all these good things by getting rid of it?” Bowman said.
Another PowerPoint of Bowman’s — a crash course on dam removal — is called Dam U.
Bowman said the Stream Heritage Partnership has yet to remove a dam in Arkansas, but the process is well underway to remove one that a private landowner built years ago on Mine Creek, a tributary of the Cossatot River.
Bowman said the group spearheaded the removal of a slab crossing on Crooked Creek downstream from Harrison. It was replaced with a span bridge.
The Game and Fish Commission has an Arkansas Stream Team to help people become involved in stream and watershed conservation.
“We’ve lost thousands of miles of free-flowing, natural streams to damming, industrial and agricultural pollution and other activities,” according to agfc.com. “Recent studies indicate we’ve lost more than 25 percent of the state’s smallmouth bass streams this century.”
Sean Saunders is the Region 1 Stream Team coordinator for the Game and Fish Commission. Lake Harrison is in Region 1, which includes most of Northwest Arkansas.
“Streams transport sediment and gravel,” Saunders said. “When you dam a stream, there are chemical imbalances that happen in the stream.”
For one thing, he said, damming a stream increases the water temperature, which can affect the species that live there.
Because of the dam, pollutants that wash into Crooked Creek upstream could collect in Lake Harrison, he said.
Crooked Creek, a tributary of the White River, is known for its “feisty smallmouth bass,” according to the Game and Fish Commission.
The commission has designated a 22-mile Crooked Creek Water Trail. Paddlers can put in at Pyatt — 18 miles east of Harrison by car — and float eastward all the way to Yellville.
But the entire trip could take a while.
“Under normal conditions, paddlers can expect to cover about 2 miles per hour on this stream with deep pools, fast chutes, riffles and small waves,” according to agfc.com. “The water level in the creek depends entirely on rainfall. This peaceful stream can turn into a raging torrent very quickly, especially during heavy spring rains.”
Phillips said the Harrison City Council voted last month to let the Game and Fish Commission study the removal of the dam. When completed, the proposal will go back before the council.
“There’s no commitment at this point,” Phillips said. “We’re agreeing to take a real serious look at it.”
He said there will be a public meeting before any final decision is made.
Saunders said there may be grants available to help pay for removal of the dam.
Harrison Mayor Jerry Jackson said the Game and Fish Commission will decide where the creek bed will be.
“Right now, our lake is real wide,” Jackson said. “The creek is in the middle of that. So they have to design the creek. We’re at the beginning of this process.”