Who Needs Enemies with Good Neighbors Like These?

    Oklahoma agreed to review its scenic rivers phosphorus limit if northwest Arkansas reduced phosphorus in sewage and regulated poultry manure in the Illinois River watershed. Time will determine if that was a good bargain. Phosphorus is a nutrient that degrades water quality as Tulsans well know. If the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) bows to intense pressure from Arkansas by weakening the protective limit of .037 mg/l phosphorus for scenic rivers, it might be devastating to the Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake.

    Oklahomans asked the OWRB, legislature, and governor to impose the limit because of the rapid deterioration of the Illinois River. There was intense pressure from northwest Arkansas to reject the limit but the water board showed courage and approved it. The limit was accepted by the U.S. EPA which delegates water quality standards to our state. In December, the OWRB may get a recommendation from an advisory group reviewing the limit. Let’s hope that the water board still has the guts and has the science to not weaken or abandon the limit.

    The battle to protect the Illinois River goes back a long way and is still contentious. The United States Supreme Court, in a major Illinois River pollution lawsuit, ruled that upstream states must meet the water quality standards of downstream states. Oklahoma raised its water quality standards and began extensive water sampling for phosphorus. Oklahoma sued some of the nation’s biggest poultry companies for polluting the watershed with manure. A federal judge in Tulsa has seemingly parked on the case for over a year with no decision.

    The Northwest Arkansas Council and others are again lobbying Oklahoma, Congress, and the EPA against Oklahoma’s nutrient limit. Their primarily concern seems to be the cost of more advanced sewage treatment. The council is composed of corporations, chambers of commerce, and developers. Walmart and Tyson Foods, two of America’s biggest companies, push the council’s pro-growth, regional agenda. Another player is the University of Arkansas. Both the Sam Walton College of Business and the Agriculture Department are heavily funded by the Walton Foundation and by Tyson. These forces are smart, have big purses, and have a lot at stake if poultry companies have to clean up their mess and if sewage treatment plants are forced remove even more phosphorus.

    No matter what they profess, these people don’t care if the Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake are polluted. The river is not classified as “scenic” by Arkansas. No tourists come to canoe and swim. It creates no revenue. No lake is formed by the river in Arkansas. Their own Beaver Lake is largely protected from sewage and from the Tyson model that concentrates poultry farming in two northwest Arkansas counties in the Illinois River watershed, Benton and Washington. Their drinking water comes from Beaver Lake. The water is returned as treated sewage, not to their lake, but to Oklahoma’s beautiful Tenkiller Lake which receives tons of phosphorus yearly. It is a gigantic transfer between watersheds and one that Arkansas may not wish to sustain in the future? The Illinois River has become a conduit that conveniently removes waste, allowing more housing developments, shopping centers, freeways, and retail distribution centers.

    Northwest Arkansas leaders want to show that the .037 phosphorus limit is impossible to achieve. They have spent thousands of dollars on studies, studies financed by the very people who are polluting the stream. One study states that poultry waste is not a cause of watershed pollution. Hardly objective! These opponents of Oklahoma’s water protection efforts believe that the degradation of the Illinois River has progressed to the extent that saving the river is not economically feasible. Instead of putting pressure on the poultry industry which is unregulated by the Clean Water Act, northwest Arkansas’ leaders, including owners of regulated sewage plants, are telling us that it is impossible to save the Illinois River.

    At a recent OWRB hearing in Tahlequah, one after another Arkansas speaker railed against the .037 limit, dragging out their studies. In the midst of their consternation and teeth gnashing, one voice spoke for more river protection, reminding how much damaging phosphorus crosses our border with Arkansas, and advising against any decision swayed by selfish critics who profess to be our good neighbors but are more worried about their bottom lines. The speaker was Save the Illinois River (STIR) President Kurt Robinson of Muskogee. Robinson said that restoring the Illinois River and the five other Oklahoma Scenic Rivers (all beginning in Arkansas) is not impossible. Robinson thanked the cities and the tax payers in northwest Arkansas who have poured millions of dollars into sewage treatment plant improvements over the last decade. He gratefully acknowledged that some poultry manure finally is being removed from the watershed.

    Siloam Springs, Arkansas has a new treatment plant that may have a significant beneficial impact on Flint Creek, a tributary of the Illinois River. Another new sewage plant in the watershed is using the best technology to treat its waste. It’s operated by the Northwest Arkansas Conservation Authority (NACA). Under an agreement with STIR, NACA began operation with a phosphorus limit of point-one mg/l, ten times more stringent than limits on Oklahoma and Arkansas sewage plants and on what the EPA was prepared to accept. In a recent memo, NACA Director John Swampier said the plant is realizing a daily level of 0.05 mg/l.

    "Ten years ago, point-one mg/l was thought to be impossible for a wastewater plant in the watershed but today NACA is beating that number consistently,” Robinson said. “Ten years ago, ZERO poultry manure was being removed from the watershed. Today, about 20-percent is removed based on the most optimistic figures? Ten years from now, who knows what technological advances will be made," he said. "There is no physical or scientific reason why all of the cities in the watershed cannot build facilities that can achieve point-one mg/l phosphorus removal and there is no physical or scientific reason that 100-percent of the poultry waste can’t be removed from the watershed. The only obstacles to a clean watershed are power, politics and greed," the STIR leader said.

    Will Oklahoma’s .037 phosphorus limit help restore the Illinois River and Tenkiller Lake? Should there be a moratorium on spreading poultry manure in the watershed and should the cities put more pressure on factory farms and Congress to clean up their mess? Will these things be costly, is it worth it, and will future generations thank us? The answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. Is it too late to save the Illinois River? That answer is definitely no!

    Oklahoma has set its sights high for the Illinois River. Arkansas has low expectations. It reminds me of something my friend the late humorist James H. Boren said: “You can’t soar with Eagles if you roost with the Chickens.”

Ed Brocksmith,