A hunting buddy insists that climate change is the reason for prolonged flooding in our state's lowlands, and that the government should do everything possible to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Except for managing water at Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area. There, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission should butt out. He says the Game and Fish Commission cannot ameliorate the effects of flooding, and it should not even try.
Inaction is a course of action in its own right because inaction produces consequences. At Bayou Meto, decades of inaction have resulted in consequences that are clearly evident. Inaction has killed red oak trees that produce acorns that ducks eat. In their place grow more water tolerant oaks that produce acorns which ducks cannot eat. The cause of this displacement/replacement cycle is sustained inundation in stagnant water that begins in the fall, before trees go into winter dormancy. It continues into the spring and summer growing seasons.
I would say the evidence is irrefutable, but my friend refutes it vehemently. He hunts in the Government Cypress Greentree Reservoir, and he insists that tree loss and deterioration is not nearly as serious as the AGFC claims. Never mind all the trees on the ground and the leaning trees that will soon be on the ground. My friend says those are all 100-year or older trees that died of old age. If there is a 100-year old tree in Bayou Meto that is not a cypress tree, I want to see it.
Information and opinions that a journalist proffers are only as solid as the sources upon which they are based. All of the articles we've published on this subject are accessible through our archive and are available with your digital subscription to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. There is no need to list all of those sources here, but they are the best sources available. They are all accredited scientists that have reached their conclusions through the classic scientific method.
According to our sources, the solution to the effects of sustained inundation is to allow water to move into and out of the green tree reservoirs somewhat naturally. This means the function of green tree reservoirs must evolve.
For many years, the Arkansas River has remained so high through the spring that water cannot drain out of places like Bayou Meto WMA.
In recent years, high water has endured in Bayou Meto into summer. The new water management policy for the area, soon to be assisted by more modern water control structures, will facilitate water movement through the area and allow excess water to drain when conditions allow. This will alleviate individual rainfall events from stacking in the green tree reservoirs, which are at the lowest elevations in their area.
Presumably, it will also discourage water anoxia caused by lack of movement.
To its discredit, the Game and Fish Commission has conditioned the public to believe that the inert pump station at Reydell is a viable solution. The pump station is tiny, too small to drain 14,000 or more acres of high water, especially if more water is flowing into the area. It is merely one piece of a complex puzzle.
The public is also conditioned to blame the Army Corps of Engineers, but the problem is basic hydrology. If the Mississippi River is at or near flood stage, the water in the Arkansas River cannot flow out, which means all of its tributaries back-flow and spread into the lowlands. There it stays until the big rivers fall out.
A fluid remedy is to hold less water in the green tree reservoirs so that they can receive fresh water and flush excess water. That is essentially how the Corps manages its big reservoirs.
For far longer than it should have, the Game and Fish managed its green tree reservoirs based on consumer desires instead of regarding the consumer as the beneficiary of proper management.
From our interactions afield, through correspondence and at public meetings, we perceive that most hunters acknowledge that something must be done. There is not consensus on what precisely must be done, but many, if not most, accept that the evolution of water management in public areas will sometimes inconvenience hunters.
That is at the core of my friend's ire. He has limited time to hunt, and he can no longer depend on Government Cypress to flood on a schedule.
That's not nearly as inconvenient as having zero public duck habitat because hunters refuse to allow the commission to adapt to a changing climate.