Illinois River Watershed Partnership educates Northwest Arkansas officials on sustainable planning

Photo submitted
Nicole Hardiman, former director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, speaks to a group of local officials during the partnership's stormwater action discussion on June 30. Hardiman was showing the stream bank erosion along Osage Creek near the partnership's headquarters in Cave Springs.
Photo submitted Nicole Hardiman, former director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership, speaks to a group of local officials during the partnership's stormwater action discussion on June 30. Hardiman was showing the stream bank erosion along Osage Creek near the partnership's headquarters in Cave Springs.

Illinois River Watershed Partnership's Blue Cities, Blue Neighborhoods initiative seeks to raise awareness about the issues of stormwater management and to educate local officials about sustainable planning.

The Illinois River and its tributaries are experiencing flooding and stream bank erosion, which causes loss of usable land, pollution and poor water quality, according to Morgan Keeling, community relations manager for the partnership.

The issue will limit the region's ability to grow if local cities don't work together to take action, Keeling said. She said the population is generally moving west into the floodplain. Erosion and flooding could also ruin the natural resources that attract people to Northwest Arkansas, she said.

Officials from the region's larger cities said while they have implemented some of the initiative's recommendations, the effort has emphasized the need to work regionally.

"I think that it will be helpful for our region to look at stormwater from a holistic, big picture standpoint rather than each city doing their own thing," said Katie Hollingshead, Springdale's senior project and stormwater manager in the Engineering Department.

Keeling presented Blue Cities, Blue Neighborhoods to the Rogers Planning Commission on Oct. 19. She has also recently shared the initiative with the Fayetteville, Springdale and Bentonville city councils and hopes to speak to the cities of Siloam Springs and Tahlequah, Okla.

Blue cities and neighborhoods are stormwater friendly or stormwater neutral, according to the partnership's website.

Traditional stormwater management aimed to move water away from urban areas as quickly as possible and treat large rain events.

Low-impact development practices restore riparian areas, conserve critical forests and floodplains, reduce flooding, promote green space, reduce pollution and erosion and promote ecologically diverse habitats, the website states.

The nonprofit received a $250,000 grant from the Walton Foundation for the two-year, Blue Cities, Blue Neighborhoods initiative, Keeling said. During the first year, the partnership is focusing on educating city officials on sustainable planning. In the second year, it hopes to work with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension to go door-to-door to reach landowners and arrange neighborhood meetings and block parties to discuss water quality and low-impact development, she said.

The initial stormwater action plan discussion took place June 30, Keeling said. Local and elected officials from Northwest Arkansas cities, along with state and national representatives, attended the event, she said.

The partnership developed a toolkit for each of Northwest Arkansas' four big cities that includes an overview of topics such as water quality monitoring, stream bank erosion and the degradation of ecosystems, Keeling said.

Sending land down river

Stormwater causes stream bank erosion because a large volume of water comes down at once, washing soil downstream, Keeling said. A total of 79% of the areas the partnership studied show stream bank erosion, she said. The average erosion rate was 5.2 feet per year, but some areas eroded as much as 40 feet per year, she said.

Based on these studies, more than twice the phosphorus polluting the Illinois River comes from erosion rather than wastewater treatment plants, Keeling said.

"Land is so expensive here, and we are literally sending it down the river," she said.

A 1-inch rain creates 5,431 more gallons of runoff per acre in a medium-density residential neighborhood than on land with natural ground cover, Keeling said. A 66-acre neighborhood in Rogers is contributing 358,446 more gallons of water with every inch of rain, she said.

Across the whole watershed, that means 1 inch of rain sends 263 million more gallons of water into the Illinois River and its tributaries, Keeling said.

Between 2010 and 2020, Benton County's population grew by 28% from 221,339 to 284,333, according to U.S. Census data. Washington County's population increased 21% over the same time period, from 203,065 to 245,871.

Northwest Arkansas has also seen an increase in precipitation since 2010, Keeling said.

Solutions include increasing opportunities for water to absorb back into the ground, cleaning it and slowing it down before it reaches creeks and rivers, retrofitting new extension ponds and allowing space for living rivers to expand and contract as they would naturally, Keeling said.

High-density housing, which takes up less space, helps preserve farmland and green space, which better absorb water, she said.

Cities get involved

Stormwater is a difficult problem because it's raining a lot more than it has in the past, according to John McCurdy, Rogers community development director. Meanwhile, cities are becoming more populated, he said.

Rogers is already doing almost everything the partnership recommends for the region, McCurdy said.

Rogers is about a year into a multiyear stormwater study of the city, which will look at existing infrastructure for degraded systems and other problems, McCurdy said. Part of the stormwater study will include revising ordinances to create a master stormwater plan so the city will know exactly what infrastructure requirements are needed, he said.

The city is also part of a conversation with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission to expand its study into a regional study, he said.

Keeling's presentation shows that, as the city plans the comprehensive growth map, planners need to realize pockets of high-density development help preserve low-density areas, he said.

Alan Pugh, engineer for the city of Fayetteville, helped facilitate the partnership's presentation of Blue Cities, Blue Neighborhoods to the Fayetteville Planning Commission.

Fayetteville already is using many of the ideas in the toolkit, he said. Some of the city's actions include a low-impact development ordinance; a streamside protection ordinance, which includes buffer zones between developments and streams; a drainage criteria manual, which includes water quality requirements; and recent revisions to the floodplain ordinance, he said.

Springdale, like 21 other cities in Northwest Arkansas including Bentonville, Rogers and Fayetteville, has a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System permit with the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality, Hollingshead said. The permit requires cities to develop and implement their own stormwater management program to reduce contamination from stormwater runoff and prohibit illicit discharges, according to the Regional Planning Commission's website.

Staying in compliance also involves observing outfall locations, providing education outreach opportunities for the public and managing stormwater within the public works department, Hollingshead said.

The city is looking at using green infrastructure and stormwater mitigation downtown through measures such as rain gardens and landscape detention ponds, which help treat stormwater on site rather than moving it downstream, she said.

Dan Weese, Bentonville city engineer, and Janet Paith, stormwater coordinator, also attended the June discussion.

"It reminded us of how important it is to continue our focus on eliminating the negative impacts of development on our natural resources through smart growth," Weese said.

Bentonville has used the partnership toolkit to guide the use of low-impact development and to plan for development that will impact areas beyond the city limits, he said.

The Bentonville City Council earlier this year passed an ordinance addressing the inclusion of low-impact development ideas in all projects including single-family homes. Voters passed a drainage bond to design and construct projects that will help eliminate local flooding and provide for regional retention to minimize flooding and stream bank erosion, he said.

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About the watershed

The headwaters of the Illinois River begin in Hogeye and the river flows west into Oklahoma where it is designated a scenic river. The river’s watershed covers more than 1 million acres, or 1,700 square miles, including portions of Benton and Washington counties in Arkansas, and a small section of Crawford County. In Oklahoma, the watershed extends over portions of Adair, Delaware, Cherokee and Sequoyah counties.

Source: Illinois River Watershed Partnership

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